Masks
by Iluvbeyblade
Summary: Two people. Two masks. What happens when they let them slide? KaiMing Ming. Warning, final chapter is M rated.
1. Chapter 1

All right, time to add another fic to the 14 fics that I haven't finished yet! Why do I do this to myself? (wails)

Now then, I know most people will have read the summary and thought "Urgh, is she out of her mind? Kai/_Ming Ming_?" Believe it or not, I'm quite enjoying writing this, and I hope you all enjoy reading it!

This is dedicated to **Lamanth**, who put the idea for this pairing in my head and wrote a oneshot on it. This will probably be about two or three chapters, depending on how the plot goes.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Don't own. Don't rub it in.

* * *

"Please fasten your seatbelts, the plane is coming in to land." Kai opened his eyes and waited for the world to come back into focus. He stood, wincing as the blood flow to his legs restarted painfully. Grabbing his small rucksack, he swung it over his shoulder and joined the crush of people, all eager to get out of the aeroplane.

Customs passed without incident for once in his life - his grandfather's name was infamous in all foreign security circles - and he was now tapping his foot with impatience at the amount of time that the baggage was taking to come through. Eventually, an infuriating half an hour later, he hauled the suitcase off the conveyer belt and unzipped it, careless of the neatly-folded clothes that he was disturbing. Rummaging around inside, he let out a mental sigh of relief as his hand closed around his beloved beyblade, feeling Dranzer pulse with warmth in a greeting. His shoulders sank a fraction, some of the tension trickling away a little. Being separated from Dranzer for twelve hours non-stop wasn't good for his state of mind, he decided, zipping up the case and standing up with the beautiful royal-blue beyblade safe in his hand. Right now, all he wanted was a couple of painkillers to get rid of the nagging headache he had developed and a mug of the blackest coffee in the entire airport. Forget sleep. It was only eleven o'clock at night, he normally wouldn't sleep until near three in the morning.

He strode towards the café. People made way for him without even realising that they were doing so. It was something in the way he carried himself, something in his closed-off, distant expression that suggested he was above mere mortals. In reality, he was very mortal, and suffering from jet-lag and coffee withdrawal, but who were they to know that? He chuckled inwardly at the thought. What was a masquerade like this for indeed, if not hiding your real feelings from nosy passer-bys? And anybody else who tried to get too close.

"An espresso, please. As strong as you can make it." The teenager behind the counter nodded, his eyes wide with awe that he didn't quite dare voice. Kai sighed as he leant on the counter. It was to be expected, of course. After three years, he should be used to it by now. As a world-class beyblader, one of the very best in the world if he wanted to be precise, he got attention regularly. Daily, as a matter of fact. When would they get the picture?

The more they tried to learn about Kai Hiwatari, the more the real Kai Hiwatari retreated behind his mask. That was how it had worked for eighteen years now, and that was how it would always work.

"Your coffee, sir," Nodding in thanks, Kai took hold of the mug and sat down in the corner. The smallest table there was a two-seater. That was just plain annoying. Not _everyone _had someone meeting them at the other end. Didn't airport staff know that?

* * *

Deep chocolate-coloured eyes stared into the mirror that hung over the sink, carefully applying cover-up makeup to an ugly purple bruise that showed up horribly against the clear brown skin. With a sigh of defeat, the hand fell away, slipping the make-up back into its case. Seconds later, the door shut softly.

* * *

Halfway down his jet-black coffee, Kai took a break, the heat burning the back of his throat. The teenager behind the counter had been American, without a doubt, the badly-disguised accent confirmed it. Thoughts of a certain blond American predictably followed this observations, swiftly succeeded by the rest of the World Champion team. If he was being pedantic, only Tyson and Daichi were World Champions, but it was generally accepted in the beyblading community that the Justice 5 tournament had been just as hard as a World Championship, if not more. 

Daichi and Kenny, last time he heard from either of them, were still fighting over Matilda. The young girl appeared to be taking an uncharacteristic pleasure in playing them against each other, and Kevin had recently been bitten by the puberty bug as well.

Result; hello, love-square. He chuckled in his head, making doubly sure that none of his emotions showed on his face.

Hilary was apparently training to be a nurse, and annoying everyone around her with her constant lectures about eating healthily and daily exercise. She had laughed about it over the phone last time they had talked, but he could tell she wasn't at her happiest, to put it lightly. One of these days, he was going to ring up Tyson and tell him a little something that had been right under his nose for over two years.

Max was splitting his time between America and Japan, six months each way. He was unusually taciturn about what he was doing in America, but Kai had his suspicions. Not that he would ever mention them, even to himself. Privacy _was_ privacy, after all.

Ray's case was much more clear-cut. He and Mariah were glued to each other's side over in China, and he was busy, as he put it, "raising the next Asian champion." Teaching, that was, not making his own. Although, it was only a matter of time.

Tyson was eating as much as ever, talking as much rubbish as ever, and as blind as ever. Kenny and Max were apparently plotting to lock him and Hilary in a room together and leave them there, never mind if something flew through a window. Secretly in love with each other or not, or perhaps because of that, they couldn't be in the same room as each other without something being launched through the air to miss the intended target and fly through a window. Generally a chair, thrown at Tyson. _Always _an expensive window.

Breaking away from his mindless ramblings, he looked absentmindedly around the part of the airport he was in. People streamed past in a never-ending stream, blurring into a bland mesh of flesh and brown hair. Brown, such an unexciting colour to look at constantly. Suddenly, as the rush of people heading for "Gate 7, calling all flight 153 passengers to Gate 7!" slowed, a flash of a new colour caught his eye. A bright, vibrant aqua-blue. Blinking, he checked his coffee. Yes, the coffee was normal. He looked again. Yes, there _was_ bright blue hair in that crowd.

The crowd dispersed almost entirely, leaving a teenage girl standing uncertainly on her own, looking around with huge, velvety brown eyes. A name flew into Kai's mind immediately. Well, after the combination of Kenny's blind obsession and Hilary's scorching jealousy, how could any of them ever forget her?

"Ming Ming, of all people…" he murmured out loud, shaking his head fractionally in disbelief. He stared at her with interest as she began to move towards the café.

Her shiny, aqua-blue hair was tied back in a simple ponytail that swung as she moved. She was wearing a tight, low-cut dark-green top and equally tight blue jeans. The top rode up with each step that she took, exposing an expanse of smooth caramel-coloured skin and a pierced belly-button. Her eyes were made to look even larger with eyeliner, mascara-coated eyelashes sweeping down coyly as people turned to stare. Her lips were a natural-looking pink, only a slightly reflective sheen as the lights shone down on her telling otherwise.

She approached the counter and ordered something, her voice soft, inaudible. Turning away, her eyes suddenly met Kai's. They widened in surprise.

Ming Ming stared at the older blader, her mind racing frantically. W-what if he'd seen the bruise? Just in time, she stopped her hand from flying up to finger the tender, throbbing spot on her cheek. Taking slow, deep breaths, she calmed herself down. Everything would be fine. He knew nothing. It would probably be a good idea to go and make polite conversation, just to make sure, nonetheless. Never mind that she couldn't think of much that she would like to be doing less. When had that ever affected what had to be done? Fixing a happy, cheerful smile on her face, she took her bottle of water from the boy behind the counter and walked over to Kai.

"Hiya!" she said brightly as she slid into the seat next to him. He grunted in response. She mock-frowned. "That's not very nice!"

"Trust me, your voice isn't too pleasant, either." came the cold answer. She bristled, inwardly enjoying the feeling for once. "Not everyone's a fan." he elaborated. She shrugged nonchalantly.

"Oh well, I've got enough!" She winked cheekily and smiled at him. Expressionless amethyst eyes gazed back at her, their owner maintaining a disdainful silence. Giving up on conversation, she settled back into the chair, trying to look relaxed. She checked her watch - eleven thirty. The butterflies in her stomach intensified.

"You waiting for somebody?" She looked up, hearing Kai's curt inquiry only vaguely.

"Sorry?" She blushed slightly as he sighed in annoyance.

"Are you waiting for anybody?" he repeated, his tone indifferent.

"Oh! Yes, I am." If he wanted more information, tough, that was all she was willing to give him. He didn't seem to mind though, and went back to drinking what smelt like coffee and silently observing the goings-on around him. She studied him from under lowered eyelashes.

He was far taller than her, but they were the same height sitting down because of the way he was hunched over the table.

"Sitting like that's bad for your posture." She slapped a hand over her mouth and blushed, her caramel skin turning a dark shade of pink. "Oh my gosh, did I really just say that out loud?"

"Yes." He looked vaguely amused, the corner of his mouth tilting upwards in a slight smirk.

"I'm sorry, it just slipped out. Sometimes I just do that, you know? Say what I think." She giggled nervously.

"Forget about it." The smirk had disappeared, leaving a thin line in its place.

"Okay, sorry, it's too late at night for me. I'm going a bit hyperactive."

"I would never have noticed." She giggled again, the sound slightly hysterical. Kai sighed noiselessly and ran his free hand through his hair. "Remind me what country I'm in?" he muttered, raising an eyebrow. Ming Ming suppressed another edgy giggle with difficulty.

"France." she replied eventually. "Where have you come from?"

"Hong Kong. Twelve hours on a plane. Why are _you_ in France?"

"This is where I come from!" She smiled at the puzzled flicker in his amethyst eyes. She waited for him to ask, but he seemed determined to stay silent except for when it was entirely necessary. "Both my parents are Japanese, but I was born in France. I grew up here, too."

"What was it like?" Her bright smile faltered. Hastily, she stiffened her face muscles and held it there, hoping that he hadn't noticed her reaction.

"It was okay. You know, normal family life." She added the last comment deliberately, remembering the rumours that constantly circulated about Kai's upbringing. To her disappointment, he simply nodded and returned to staring at the passers-by. She pouted in annoyance and crossed her arms, inwardly wincing at the immaturity of the actions. Kai appeared to agree, he cast her a faintly repulsed look, one eyebrow raised as if to say; do you really want to do that? _No_, she answered silently.

Uncrossing her arms, she put them on the table, then dropped her head onto them, nestling comfortably into the makeshift pillow and blinking sleepily. Her eyes drifted to the clock on the wall nearby, and her eyes widened at the time. Eleven forty-five. At that very second, a slender teenage boy appeared from the crowd, distinguishable, as she was, by his striking mop of aqua-blue hair. Getting up so fast that her head whirled, she flew towards him. This time, slipping into childish behaviour was easy.

"Toni!" she squealed, rushing towards her older brother. Turquoise eyes crinkled as Tomi grinned widely in greeting and embraced his little sister in a tight hug.

Kai watched intently, partially obscured from the siblings by the position of the table. If it hadn't been for the identical hair colour, he would never have identified the boy as any relation to Ming Ming whatsoever. His hair was messy and cut relatively short. Where her eyes were dark brown, his were turquoise. Where she was attractively curvy, he was gangly and skinny. Her tan was lighter than his, and his skin was marred by spots. Nevertheless, siblings they obviously were. That much was apparent from the way they interacted; not that he was an expert in sibling interaction.

Suddenly, the boy's eyes caught Kai's. He pointed Kai out to Ming Ming and said something; they were too far away for Kai to hear properly. Ming Ming smiled, a little nervously, Kai thought, and replied quickly. They began to walk over to the café again. _Older brother wants an introduction_, Kai thought with a smirk. _No worries, pal, I'm just passing through_.

As they got closer, Kai noticed that they weren't as comfortable in each other's presence as he had first thought. There was a slight awkwardness between them, a stiffness in their postures, an edge to their rapid French.

"_Tu t'appelle comment_?" the boy asked, protectiveness oozing from every pore of his body. Ming Ming opened her mouth to translate, but Kai silenced her with a glare.

"_Je m'appelle Kai. Et vous_?" he shot back, his voice curt. The boy's eyes lit up with understanding.

"Kai? As in the beyblader?" he inquired, switching effortlessly into English without even a trace of an accent. Kai nodded. The boy put out his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Kai. I'm Antoine." Kai shook his hand, letting go a little faster than was polite.

"Pleasure." he said tersely.

"What brings you to France, Kai?" He shrugged.

"Travelling." he said flatly. Standing up, he settled his luggage more comfortably into his grip. "Speaking of which, I'd better get moving."

"You can stay with us, if you want," Ming Ming piped up, latching onto her brother's arm and looking up at him beseechingly. "Can't he, Toni?" Kai couldn't stop his lip curling in distaste at her juvenile behaviour.

"You wouldn't want me around after ten minutes." He nodded to Antoine and began to walk away. He stopped. Not because he wanted to, but because Ming Ming was clinging onto his arm like a monkey. He stared down at her, wondering at the badly-concealed look of misery in her huge chocolate-coloured eyes.

"You can call, if you want." the girl said brightly, her tone the very opposite of her eyes. "The number's 23610 510875." He nodded. Bending down until he was at her level of approximately five foot, he stared levelly at her.

"What are you trying to hide, kid?" he whispered. Ming Ming opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off. "If you want me to stop calling you kid, give me a reason to believe you aren't one." Straightening up, he detached his arm from her suddenly loosened grip, and walked away. As he turned to go round a corner, he saw Ming Ming re-attach herself to her brother.

He knew when someone was putting up a front, making out that they were someone they weren't, and Ming Ming was projecting naïveté and childishness as if her life depended on it. Before, he had simply thought that those characteristics were part of her personality. Seeing her close up, talking to her, had convinced him otherwise. The only question was; why? What was she so desperate to hide?

Nobody wore a mask for nothing.

* * *

Well? All opinions welcome, but please, if you feel like flaming, please don't! I_ really_ don't like them!Anyway, please review! 


	2. Chapter 2

Okay, I apologise for the shortness of this chapter! I've only put it up because of writer's block, and because I'm desperate for reviews! I haven't had a review in about four days!

The beginning's a bit confusing, Kai's at Ming Ming's house.

* * *

"How did I get here again?" Kai demanded, glaring at the younger girl curled up in an armchair.

"It was raining and you were lost. Go figure." Ming Ming replied absentmindedly, turning the page of her book. "Plus, I said that we had a decent gym."

"So you did. Where is it, then?"

"Over there somewhere." Kai stood up and walked over to the petite singer.

"You've taken your mask off." he said quietly, enjoying the look of confusion that crossed her innocent features.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm talking to a fifteen year-old, not a five year-old." Ming Ming looked away. She blinked once, then looked up at him again with a giggle.

"Sorry, I'm not used to talking to older boys!" she offered brightly. Inwardly, she quailed at the look of disgust that Kai sent her. After he had disappeared off to the exercise room, she tried to settle back down and read. The words swam on the page, and she found herself unable to concentrate. Plus, she needed the toilet. She got up and trailed listlessly into the bathroom. Toni was out somewhere, and her mother was away, so she was lonely. And yet, old habits die hard, and even at the cost of companionship she couldn't stop herself from following the path that seemed to have been carved out for her years ago.

Standing in the bathroom, she stripped down to her underwear and stared miserably at herself in the mirror. With a cry of confusion, she sank down on the toilet seat and buried her head in her hands. She was fifteen and looked it, she should be growing up, she should be acting her age! But she wasn't…she _couldn't_.

Innocence was her image, that was what Mama always said. Her selling point. But she didn't want to have that image anymore, she was a world-class beyblader in her own right! _That_ was what she wanted to be known for. Not her image. Well, maybe a little bit…oh, why couldn't everything just be simple, like it used to be? She groaned out loud, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes and watching the colours swirl. The door opened, and before she had time to react, callused hands were taking hold of her wrists, pulling them away from her eyes roughly.

"You'll damage your eyes doing that." Her sight hopelessly blurred, she gazed up at Kai's fuzzy outline silently. He stood up. "Let's talk," was all he said. Obediently, she grabbed her clothes and followed him into the exercise room, blinking as her sight returned to normal. Dressing quickly, she gave the older blader a confused look. "Tell me about yourself." She looked across at him. He was already moving backwards and forwards on the rowing machine, his movements smooth and powerful, his eyes fixed on a point in the distance. She took a deep, shaky breath and began to talk.

Kai toyed idly with Dranzer as he sat on his hotel room, mulling over the earlier conversation. He had discovered that they had both been introduced to fame at an early age, an experience that had affected both their lives permanently.

He had also discovered that her eyes were dark ruby, not brown at all, but that was irrelevant.

Ming Ming had been modelling by the time that she was three and at the age of six had become a childhood supermodel before moving onto singing and gaining a reputation very quickly. Her entire career had been built on the fact that she _was_ a child. A beautiful, striking child with exceptional abilities, yes, but the real reason that she had become such a success was that people looked at her and went "aw, she's so _cute_!"

By contrast, Kai had been known throughout the whole of Russia by the time he had reached eight for his beyblading abilities, and because of his grandfather's plans for him. He had been forced to grow up long before his time, and his attitude hadn't changed much in the past decade as a result.

They were so different, he mused. He was taciturn to the extreme, she bubbled over with enthusiastic chatter. His life had been about growing up as fast as possible, hers seemed to be about staying under ten for as long as she could.

He couldn't stand her when she acted like a child. It was a hypocrisy of everything she should be, including the way that she dressed. If she was indeed a child inside, and he knew she wasn't, why would she dress like the did, only a few rungs above a whore?

Just as he battled with the more humane version of him that didn't like being stuck behind a mask of cold pitilessness, the one that made him smile when Tyson had beaten him, so she was fighting with her hormones, fighting with the knowledge that she was a fifteen year-old teenager when the world expected her to be nothing more than a sweet child.

Sighing, he turned off the light and stripped to his boxers, tumbling into bed. He hadn't eaten sugar in nearly six months, his teeth could wait until tomorrow. He had the mother of all jet lag.

* * *

"Sis! Time to get up!" Toni's cheery voice rang out. Ming Ming rolled over and burrowed further under the warm duvet, wanting to emerge like she wanted acne. "Ming Ming, there's a letter waiting for you downstairs!" Groaning loudly in protest, she sat up slowly and stumbled downstairs. Sitting at the kitchen table, she scanned the letter then groaned again and pushed it to one side. "What is it?"

"Stupid press conference." she mumbled. A thought lodged in her mind_. I wonder if Kai's been "invited" too? _Her pulse quickened. Determinedly ignoring her thoughts, she finished her breakfast and then got up. Putting her bowl and spoon neatly in the dishwasher, she headed for the soundproof room that was more familiar to her than her own bedroom.

Clutching the microphone tightly, she slumped onto a hard metal chair that sat in the middle of the bare room. Words floated through her head and sounded in the air without conscious effort on her part.

_There's only so much I can take,_

_Before it tears, tears me apart._

_There's only so much I can take,_

_Before you break, break my heart._

_There's nothing that's left in the world for me,_

_Nothing except what you want me to be,_

_It hurts me so much to see, to feel,_

_This horrible world that's so unreal._

_I'm hiding away, hiding from the day,_

_Shying away from what I want to say,_

_Crouching behind this mask that I've made_

_Why won't somebody sweep me away_

_From this life?_

She felt, rather than heard, somebody come in, and stopped singing instantly.

"Hey, sis," Toni drawled, ruffling her hair a little too hard. Swallowing, she plastered a smile on her face as she looked up at him.

"Hi, Toni!" _Hypocrite! _she screamed mentally. _You can't even stay true to what you sing!_ Outwardly as placid as ever, she gazed at Toni thoughtfully, calculatingly.

Her older brother was seventeen, two years older than her. He was also - and this fact was one that the family kept secret - one of the most celebrated authors in France. He had begun writing at the age of twelve under the pseudonym of Pierre Jacques, and had become a household name within a year. He had an IQ of 159. His work was critically acclaimed by the best writers and literature journalists in France.

And he hated her. Hated her with a terrifying intensity. People knew her identity while they could only speculate at his. They were both famous, but she was more famous, more loved by the public, more admired by the fans. She was beautiful; he was merely reasonably good-looking. It was sibling jealousy taken to the most extreme of lengths.

She was jolted from her thoughts by a hard slap. Her head jerked back and she stared up at her brother defiantly.

"Stop it!" she hissed. He looked down at her, his eyes turning a dark, menacing blue, like the depths of the sea. Slowly, he traced the fading outline of the black eye he had given her before leaving for a meeting with his publisher. Ming Ming jerked back, her eyes hard, glittering chips of ruby in her heart-shaped face. "Get off!" she hissed again. Toni stepped backwards and regarded her warily. Then he struck her again; far harder this time. She cried out in pain as the blow knocked her off the chair and onto the floor.

"Stupid little brat," he whispered harshly. "Don't you even _try_ to stand up to me." Pain slashed through her side like a knife as his foot connected. She whimpered softly and doubled up, clutching at her throbbing stomach. Seconds later, she heard the door shut.

* * *

Well? I thought about having Toni sexually abuse her, but I think I prefer it this way. Once again, I'm so sorry about the chapter length! Please, please review! (puppy-dog eyes) 


	3. Chapter 3

Sorry about the wait! It was really weird, just yesterday I had only written half a page of this chappie, and suddenly I sit down today with some vague, unformed idea in my brain and typed another three and a half pages! Yay!

A massive thank you to: **XxMookinexX**, **SpiritualEnergy**, **kay1fire**, **Lamanth**, **kailover2006**, **Whatevergurlx0x**, **PureBlackRaven** and **Duelistgirl11** for reviewing chapter 2! Luv you all!

This chapter is dedicated to **kay1fire** because I was looking through my inbox and suddenly realised how many of my stories she's reviewed! Virtually all of them! So thanks for that!

Enjoy, everyone, and thanks for supporting this somewhat unusual pairing!

* * *

Groaning, Kai threw a pillow in the general direction of the ringing doorbell, hearing it hit the closed door with a thud. His head pounded and he felt slightly sick as he sat up, muttering curses at whoever was at the door. As he stood up, the doorbell stopped. He swore loudly and lay back down again, closing his eyes and willing his body to re-adjust as soon as possible. He was asleep within seconds.

Struggling grumpily through a bowl of cereal, he threw a careless glance at the envelope lying on the floor in front of the door. As the last scratchy mouthful slid unwillingly down his throat, he stood up, yawning widely, and headed over to the letter, scooping it up and peering blearily at the official black type. Opening it clumsily, he squinted his tired eyes, trying to make out what was typed there. Shaking his head swiftly, he struggled to bring himself back under control. He had jet-lag. Big deal. He had survived far worse than a disrupted sleep pattern. Feeling just the same, but now with the determination to ignore it, he read the letter and groaned loudly.

"Bloody stinking press vultures…" he muttered, screwing the letter up and raising his arm to throw it in the bin. A sudden thought struck him. A series of thoughts, in fact. Where there was a press conference, there would be a party afterwards. Where the was a party, there would no doubt be Ming Ming, whether for entertainment or just to talk to people. "Network," as it was called.

However, where there was a part, there would also be alcohol. Ming Ming + alcohol trouble for Ming Ming. The last thing her childish image needed was photos of her reeling around drunk. He had a feeling that she couldn't handle her drink.

"When the hell did I start worrying about that damn kid?" he grumbled. Since _you realised that no-one else did_, his conscience informed him. "Great, now I'm arguing with myself, could this day get any worse?" _A lot_. he admitted ruefully. _I'd better go to that ridiculous thing, then._ A yawn shuddered through him. _First things first: bed. I don't give a damn if it's morning. _Vaguely registering that he was in a somewhat bad mood, he headed back to the bedroom. Suddenly, the phone rang shrilly. Automatically, he reached for it.

"What?" he groaned.

"Um, hi Kai, it's me, Ming Ming."

"Mrgh?" Kai sat heavily and blinked a few times. "What is it?" he asked eventually.

"I was just wondering whether you had got a letter inviting you to some stupid press thing." Kai laughed silently at the note of disdain in the girl's voice.

"Uh-huh." Silence.

"Oh. Are you going?" Kai forced himself to speak coherently.

"Probably, yes." He frowned. "How did you get the number, anyway?" A peal of laughter rang down the phone line.

"You told me the hotel name, silly! It was easy after that! Did I wake you up, by the way? I'm really sorry. Are you okay?"

"Don't fuss. I'm just jet-lagged." he replied curtly.

"Oh, okay." came the relieved response. "See you there, then?" She sounded uncertain, as though half-expecting Kai revoke his earlier claim to be coming.

"I suppose so." Kai replied dully.

"Okay, see you there! Bye-bye!"

"Goodbye." Kai put the phone down and stretched, grumbling under his breath as he rubbed his throbbing head. He was too awake now to go back to bed, damn it! _Time for a painkiller and some practice, then_, he thought eventually. Taking Dranzer from his pocket, he threw the royal-blue beyblade up in the air and caught it deftly. _But painkiller first_.

* * *

Dressed in a denim jacket over black jeans and a black T-shirt with a scarlet collar, he stepped out of the taxi and handed the driver twenty Euros. Steeling himself, he headed towards the address of the press conference, only a few minutes walk away.

"Hey, Kai!" He turned as Ming Ming came dashing up to him, a bright smile on her face. She was wearing a short pink blouse and denim three-quarter-length trousers. A tiny blue and pink bag swung from her shoulder. Jewellery dangled from both ears, her wrists and her bellybutton, the latter nicely showed off by the low jeans. A chunky gold necklace wrapped around her slender neck, set with some kind of pink stone. Her lustrous aqua-blue hair flowed in masses of thick, bouncy ringlets over her shoulders. Her face was made-up to perfection. Or was it? What was nagging at him?

Kai nodded a greeting and started walking. The younger girl bounced along beside him, her rapid chatter sliding off him like water off a duck's back. Perplexed by that little stab of wrongness he had just received, he shot a look sideways at her. He quickly saw that she had about five layers of foundation on, giving her delicate face a chalky, awkward appearance.

"Why have you got so much make-up on?" he inquired, vaguely embarrassed to be talking about make-up. There was a slight halt in the chatter and Kai got the oddest impression that her mind was racing. There it was again; what the hell was she hiding?

"Oh, I fell down the stairs this morning. It's a pretty big bruise." came the blithe answer. "I want to look my best for all the cameras, after all!"

"By looking like a chalkboard?" Kai muttered under his breath. Ming Ming dissolved into giggles, her ruby eyes dancing with mirth. Surveying her with puzzlement, Kai suddenly remembered something that she had said when they met at the airport a few days ago.

_"Okay, sorry, it's too late at night for me. I'm going a bit hyperactive." _

Mentally, he checked the time. Eight o'clock in the evening. Fine for him; his brain still thought it was morning. Not what anyone could call late, especially not in France, a place where even tiny children didn't sleep until ten at least. He frowned slightly. Oh well. Perhaps she was nervous, and that was why there was something ever so slightly off about her behaviour. What did it matter to him? He didn't know her well enough to really form conclusions based on her behaviour. Shrugging mentally, he increased his pace just a little, not wishing to arrive together and thereby spark off unwanted rumours.

* * *

Ming Ming watched as Kai abruptly sped off and strode away, leaving her trailing behind. _He probably doesn't want us to arrive at the same time. The media would go insane_. she thought sensibly. _Not that I'd mind or anything… _She laughed softly and blushed. She didn't know a single girl on the beyblading circuit who didn't look at the aloof eighteen year-old and drool. She knew of a few boys who did as well. She giggled softly at the thought, wincing and putting a hand lightly against her throbbing face.

There was a nasty-looking scarlet hand mark across her left cheek, under the layers of thick make-up, and it burned as if she had been scalded and not just struck. Any kind of sudden movement made her bruised stomach hurt, and hurt badly. Running over to Kai had made her feel physically sick with pain, but she had stayed silent, like the good little girl that she was.

He was so strange… At times he seemed almost friendly, or at least ready to listen, and at other times she got the feeling that he would bite her head off if she so much as uttered a sound. And he had see-sawed between both those states in the three days that they had been in the same country for. Strange.

Tipping her head backwards, she stared up at the sky as her thoughts meandered restlessly. Kai…her new single…Toni…her sore face and stomach…Kai…the press conference and how much she hated them…her last album…Toni…Kai… She let out a gasp of delighted surprise as she shook herself out of thoughts about him that her mother would strongly disapprove of.

Her and Kai. Kissing.

A pleasurable shiver ran through her, only to be interrupted by a clear, insistent thought. _He's too old for you_.

"Meanie…" she mumbled, wondering why on earth she was talking to her own head. _Why not? _she asked herself bitterly. _No one else listens to me_. Suddenly, a camera flash went off close to her. She blinked rapidly and shook herself out of her thoughts. Into star-mode, as she always called it.

Putting both hands on her narrow hips, she stared mischievously into the bulky TV camera and blew the lens a cheeky kiss. Turning away, she sauntered to the doorway, swaying her hips from side to side as she went.

She closed the door behind her and walked towards the long table in the middle of the room, where Kai was already seated and looking supremely uninterested. The massed crowds of journalists and camera crews parted before her like the Red Sea before Moses. The rush of her own power made her light-headed and giddy, and she could feel hysterical giggles building up inside her. Calming herself, she slipped into the seat next to Kai and silently debated how to act.

1. The innocent child. Lots of pouting and mock-sulking and appealing giggles involved in that.

2. The temptress: a role that she had only discovered existed within her when Boris and BEGA had found her. It was self-explanatory, really. Great fun to do. On the other hand, the non-beyblading population of France would know nothing of it, and would instantly be suspicious, especially since she was sat right next to Kai.

She sighed softly, inaudibly. Okay, set mental age back a few years…

"Ming Ming, is it true that you considered giving up your singing career to pursue a new-found love for beyblading?" Ming Ming smiled.

"Yep, I did." she admitted glibly. "But then I discovered that Boris was an evil creep, and it kinda dampened my enthusiasm, you know?" She giggled. A few people laughed with her. "I still beyblade, of course, I absolutely adore doing it, but singing comes first again." She smiled again, her expression sunny and carefree. "Next question? Oh, do you want to see my beyblade?" Heads nodded eagerly, cameras were raised. Ming Ming reached into her bag and pulled out the beyblade, holding it out proudly. "That's my Venus." Flashes went off all around and the low murmur built to a pulsing buzz.

"Ming Ming, is it true that you and your opponent Daichi are an item?" Ming Ming nearly choked with laughter.

"He's thirteen, for heaven's sake!" she spluttered at last. "He probably doesn't even know what girls _are_ yet!" A ripple of laughter spread round the room. An idea striking her, Ming Ming faced the camera head-on. "If you're watching Daichi, that rematch is still on!" she declared, winking.

More questions followed. As this was France, her beloved France, the inquiries fixated mainly on her singing, with the odd beyblading question thrown in almost to humour her. Eventually, the flashing cameras and eternally smiling journalists turned to Kai, who had been sitting without moving or uttering a word for nearly two hours. The atmosphere changed, the smiles turned into glinting, hungry expressions. Ming Ming held her breath, needing no encouragement to make her eyes go absurdly wide with fright.

The questions started; sharp, rapid-fire, with no allowance for Kai being foreign and occasionally hesitant in the language.

"Why are you in France?"

"Do you plan on staying here?"

"Which team did you walk out on to come here?" Kai's bored expression hardened and he looked at the woman who had asked the question.

"None. I am no longer in any team." This provoked a fresh round of questions.

"Are you intending to quit professional beyblading?"

"How do your former team mates feel about your decision?"

"Are you recovered from your battle with Brooklyn?" Amethyst eyes turned near black.

"Perfectly." he snapped out.

"Is it true that you were severely depressed after the loss of your bit-beast?"

"What does that matter?"

"Have you ever taken anti-depressants?"

"Where is this line of questioning headed?" Kai demanded, his dark eyes flashing murder at the next person to speak. There was a short pause.

"How did Dranzer return to you?"

"I cannot say. He was just there again." Kai relaxed minutely.

"Do you still have scars from your last major battle?" Silently, Kai rolled up both jacket sleeves and laid his bare arms on the table, revealing the multitude of thin, silvery scars that zigzagged across his pale skin. "Is it true that you tried to commit suicide?"

Slowly, almost gracefully, Kai stood. There was nothing graceful about his face, however. His lips were drawn back in an angry snarl, his eyes alight with rage. Scarlet flooded his usually pale cheeks. He drew Dranzer from his pocket with a trembling hand and threw it up and down, catching it without looking.

"The next person to ask me anything about my mental health at any point will discover how it feels to have the skin peel off their face with heat." he whispered, his voice low and venomous. The room fell silent. The click as Kai placed Dranzer in its launcher echoed around the room.

"So, what are you doing in France?" one brave soul piped up. Kai shrugged and sat down, one hand still clutching the beyblade and launcher.

"Travelling." he said flatly.

"Why?"

"Staying in one country gets tedious after a while."

"Does that also apply to teams?" someone demanded archly. In one silent, deadly movement, Kai shoved his chair back and stood. Helpless, frustrated anger radiated from him as if it were heat, a palpable force that people quailed back from.

"Stop it!" Ming Ming shrieked suddenly. Tears of sympathy and empathic anger glimmered in her large eyes as she pushed her own chair back. "You're all being complete b-" she caught herself just in time, "-jerks! Stop it right now!" No one could meet her eyes. She tossed her head defiantly and glared at the room at large. Fiery temper glittered from her eyes. "There was no call for that! Now, are you all done?" Dumb nods. "Good. I'm hungry!" She flashed the cameras one last, faintly sultry glance and stalked away from the table. Faintly, over the rushing of blood in her head, she heard Kai scrape his chair back and follow her outside.

They leaned against the wall in unison, cooling anger-heated faces.

"Wow, Kai. You've got some temper!" Ming Ming exclaimed at last. Kai grunted sourly in reply. His body was quivering with tension still, and as she watched, he grabbed Dranzer, launched it and slammed into the ground with incredible force. A massive hole appeared in the solid concrete, deepening as the beyblade smashed into it again and again. Ming Ming looked on in scared awe. "Are you okay?" she asked foolishly. "Oh, sorry, that was really stupid, I know-"

"Dead right." Kai gritted out. Dranzer soared back into his hand so quickly that he rocked backwards slightly and she saw thin lines of red appearing on his bare palm. He looked back inside the conference building. "Looks like the party's started already," he muttered as if to himself. "I'm not wanted, I suppose, but then, when am I ever wanted anywhere?" His mouth twisted in a bitter smirk. "See you later, Ming Ming. I'm off to party." He laughed sarcastically, cynically. "You should head home. I won't be good company." With a brief half-smile, he strode back through the door.

After some hesitation and much staring at the huge, ragged hole in the pavement, Ming Ming followed him. This wasn't her first after-party, as she privately called them, and she was sure she could handle herself. She was fifteen after all. Not a child, really.

Well, not unless she wanted to be.

* * *

Next chapter: Kai gets tipsy and Ming Ming turns out to be more of a child in one way than she imagined... (Draw your own conclusions from that, but it might not be what you think...hehe)

Please review! All opinions welcome!


	4. Chapter 4

Well, here's the next chapter! Warning; this has Ming Ming torture! (I always torture my favourite characters. Mainly Kai, actually)

Okay, enjoy!

* * *

Ming Ming walked inside, feeling suddenly small and nervous. The room was nearly deserted, huge and echoing, with a door ajar in the side. Walking over to it, she looked into a dark corridor. With a sudden surge of recklessness, she headed into the darkness, hearing faint strains of music coming from the other end.

"Where am I going?" she asked herself softly, scouring her extensive knowledge of Paris' bars and clubs to see if she knew of one that backed onto a conference room. After a full two minutes of thinking, she gave up. She was clueless. Bright strobe lighting suddenly burned into her eyes. Blinking away the coloured spots that were left hovering in her line of vision, she stepped into the club.

Looking around the large room, she squinted through the flashing disco lights, trying to make out Kai. No, she couldn't see him _anywhere_. Her nerves kicked up another notch, the inside of her stomach now vying with the outside for pain supremacy.

She wandered around for a while, forcing herself to smile politely at anyone who recognised her and turn down any drinks that she was offered. Finally making a stop at the bar, she reached into her tiny bag for her purse and asked for a glass of water. Sipping the cool liquid slowly, she surveyed the room yet again. Still no Kai. The DJ stopped the raucous music that had been blaring relentlessly into her skull since she had stepped into the room, and for a few seconds the room fell silent.

Instantly, the atmosphere became awkward; colleagues looked at each other uncomfortably and wondered whether they should really be partying on a work night. Then the speakers boomed back into life and all reserve was washed away in an eye-blink. A delighted smile spread across Ming Ming's face as she recognised one of her favourite songs and she hopped down from the bar stool and entered the packed dance floor.

* * *

Hidden behind the speakers and with only a narrow view of his surroundings through a small gap, Kai felt a momentary flash of irritation as he saw Ming Ming get down from her stool and slip into the heaving throng of people. Telling himself - unconvincingly - that she would be fine, that she knew how to handle herself, he bit savagely into his steak and cast a longing look towards the bar. _Later,_ he promised himself. _Once I've finished this._ It was his one rule when he was anywhere within the vicinity of alcohol: have something to eat first. If he was in the wrong frame of mind, he would just grab a bag of crisps before getting down to the serious drinking, and the temptation to do that now was incredible.

Oblivion would be nice. Wiping out the memory of those ugly, know-it-all bastards who thought they could ask him whatever they liked... Temper reared its head inside him, poised to strike, and he grunted in annoyance. He would have to be careful. He had no desire to be arrested for a drunken brawl. Swallowing the bloody, tender steak in large mouthfuls, he craned his neck around to catch a glimpse of Ming Ming. _She shouldn't even be in here! _he cursed mentally. _You should have checked that she wasn't following you, you brainless fool! _As the last bite of meat slid down his throat, he rocked back in his chair and scanned the dance floor yet again. Pretending nonchalance even as his eyes narrowed, he stood and headed for the bar.

* * *

Ming Ming flashed a flirtatious smile at the reporter dancing a few feet away. He looked very young, maybe only a little older than Kai. Blue eyes creased as the reporter grinned back and moved over to dance with her.

"Hello, beautiful." he teased as the song changed to a fast-stepping disco beat.

"Hi yourself." she replied perkily, her feet adjusting to the faster tempo with ease. "What's your name?"

"I'm Pierre. And you're Ming Ming, of course." He smiled widely. She smiled back, pretending she couldn't smell the wine on his breath, and threw herself fully into dancing.

The strong, throbbing bass thumping out of the speakers echoed in her head and shuddered through her limbs. _Who needs alcohol?_ she asked herself flippantly. _This is just as good!_ Laughing happily, she spread her arms and spun around, completely caught up in the intense atmosphere. Overbalancing ever so slightly, she felt a pair of strong arms close around her.

"My hero!" she giggled up at Pierre. Standing up, she shook herself as the music faded away and readied herself for the next song.

Three songs later, she declared herself officially too hot to continue and slipped away, leaving quite a few men looking after her in disappointment. Flopping down on her vacated stool, she fanned herself with her hands and paid hurriedly for another glass of water.

Pressing the ice-cold glass to her hot skin, she leaned her head on her folded arms, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her pink blouse was plastered to her body with perspiration, and her skin-tight three-quarter lengths felt disgustingly hot and sticky. Even as tired as she was, she was still buzzing with adrenalin and delight from her frenzied dancing.

"Hey, Ming Ming, can I buy you a drink?" She looked up and groaned inwardly at the sight of Pierre's leering face. _Get your mind out of the gutter, you disgusting moron, you're not coming anywhere near me!_ she snarled inwardly.

"No thanks, I'm fine with this." She raised her half-empty glass slightly to show him what she meant.

"Oh come on, you can have something a little stronger than that, surely?" Pierre slid onto the stool next to her. Ming Ming shuddered mentally and desperately cast around for an excuse to get away. Finding nothing, she went for the rude option and stood up, letting out a cry of shock as her wrist was grasped in a tight grip. "Oh no you don't." She was dragged back into her seat. "You're not going anyway, my little pretty." Hazy blue eyes stared hungrily at her.

"I damn well am!" Ming Ming hissed, fright forcing her temper to the surface with a vicious burst. Before Pierre had a chance to react, she drew back her hand, swung, and sank her long, sharp nails into the soft flesh of his cheek, feeling the skin tear and warm blood seep over her fingers. Without looking behind her, she pulled from his suddenly loose grip and fled, running to the only hiding place her mind came up with; the toilets.

Locking the cubicle door behind her, she put the toilet seat lid down and collapsed down onto it, suddenly realising that she was trembling.

"Wow…" she breathed at last, watching her hands shake in her lap with an odd feeling of detachment. Her stomach gave a particularly painful twinge and she winced, putting one hand gingerly to her throbbing abdomen. "Stupid bastard…" she murmured, applying the rudest word she ever used to both Toni and Pierre. Standing up, she took a couple of deep breaths and unlocked the door.

Staring at herself in the mirror, she anxiously checked the make-up on her face and bit her lip, wondering whether to apply some more, just to make sure.

"No." she said out loud. "No, better not. You've already given one guy the wrong impression, haven't you, Mimi? Let's not repeat that." _I'm talking to myself… _she thought dryly. Mimi was what she had called herself when she was very small and had been unable to separate the syllables in her name properly, and, as she rather liked it, it was what she called herself on a regular basis. Only when she was alone, of course.

"So…childish!" she mumbled, irritated with herself. Suddenly, Pierre's words came back to her, mocking, derisive.

_"Oh come on, you can have something a little stronger than that, surely?"_

_Dead right! _she thought fiercely. _I'm not a stupid little kid who can't hold her drink, I have wine with dinner virtually every night! Why shouldn't I enjoy myself a little bit? _A surge of recklessness cemented her foolhardy statement, and she scooped up her little bag and left the toilets.

Five full glasses of wine later, she was out on the dance floor again and in a better mood than she could remember being in for a long time. She was more than a little drunk, and knew it, but she really couldn't care less. As she spun across the room, moving in perfect time to the music, people's features blurred in the dim, sporadic light, and she was left with a warm, secure feeling of well-being, along with a streak of mischief that was rapidly rising to the surface and pushing aside more sensible thoughts, like that fact that she was surrounded by journalists and photographers. _Time to show them all that I'm a big girl now!_ she declared to herself.

* * *

Kai pushed his hair out of his eyes and shoved Dranzer back into his launcher with quite a bit more force than was necessary. Beyblading while drunk; the hardest test of the bond between bit-beast and partner. _And bloody infuriating… _he growled mentally. Even the simple twists and turns that he and Dranzer had learnt a decade ago became tricky if he downed more than a few shots of vodka. Or whiskey, but that tended to make him violent, so he steered clear of that unless he was completely alone. The same effect that fogged his mind meddled with his mental connection to Dranzer, like a telephone line with terrible static, and made communication that much harder for both sides.

Giving up for the moment, he replaced the beyblade and launcher in his jacket pocket. Tipping his head back, he stared at the dark, cloudy sky and debated going back inside. The good music was on; the kind when the sluts came into their own. _I'm probably too far gone. _he reasoned with himself. _And I have a responsibility - wait, when did _she_ become my responsibility? _He scowled.

"Oh, whatever…" he muttered out loud, turning around and heading for the open door. _I'd better go and check anyway… _Cursing Ming Ming none too quietly, he stepped inside, the stifling heat created by packed bodies uncomfortable after the coolness of outside. Slipping off his jacket, he went over to his place behind the speakers and dropped it there, using his concealment to scan the dance floor. As he had predicted, the music and dancing had taken on a far more "stimulating" tone. Men and women alike were gyrating against each other, and a few females were performing what amounted to little more than a strip-tease. Suddenly, among those women, Kai caught a glimpse of bright blue hair.

Ming Ming fully appeared. The buttons on her top were undone almost to the top of her stomach and her three-quarter lengths had become shorts. Fury and shock jolted through Kai in equal measures. Moving on instinct, he came out from his vantage point and ploughed toward her. He reached her and grabbed her by the wrists.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he hissed, his face inches from hers. Huge, unfocused ruby eyes glared up at him.

"Having fun!" she retorted angrily. Kai grimaced.

"You've been drinking!" he accused.

"So've you!"

"I'm eighteen, not fifteen."

"I can handle my drink!"

"Which was why you were about to act like a slut?" He retuned the young girl's blazing glare with one of his own, uncomfortably aware of her body pressed against his.

"I'm just having some fun!" Ming Ming shouted at him. "Stop being so unfair! I'm not a kid!" Kai opened his mouth to protest, but she pulled away, stumbling slightly, and ran into the heaving mass of people. Dodging to one side, Kai saw her go to the bar, grab a small glass of what looked like water and down it in one. Even from this distance, Kai could see her disgusted expression, her delicate features screwed up into a contortion of revulsion. A chill went deep into him. _Vodka._ he thought numbly. _Ming Ming, you idiot… _Before he knew what was happening, he was moving towards her, but she saw him and gave him a cold, hate-filled glare before disappearing from sight yet again. Swearing out loud now in every language he knew, heedless of the curious glances he was relieving, he tried to chase after her, only to find his way blocked by a particularly rowdy group of dancers. Their faces were flushed and their eyes bright. Only their partially undone suits and smart blouses marked them as the same people who had hid their hatred and loathing of him under a thin veneer of acid questions.

Abandoning any façade of politeness as anger welled up inside him again, he threw himself into the midst of the crowd in an effort to get through, smirking in satisfaction as he felt his elbows and fists connect with various exposed parts of people's anatomy.

Finally, nearly a full five minutes later, he spotted her. She was reeling around, only the crush of people where she was standing keeping her upright. As he neared her, she turned and he swallowed as an unknown emotion made itself painfully known at the sight of her face. Tears and sweat made her face scarlet and shiny, her eyes dazed and swollen. As he watched in sickened horror, she lost any vestige of balance that might have remained in her intoxicated mind and fell, hitting the floor and curling up into a tight ball.

Kai reached the sobbing girl in a few steps. Crouching down, he shook her shoulder sharply. Clouded, dull ruby gazed blearily at him.

"Come on." Kai said quietly, shaking her again. "Up. Come on." She simply stared at him, tears welling in her eyes yet again and trickling down her ashen face. With a groan, Kai picked her up, grunting at the sudden weight, and staggered unsteadily out of the crush of people. An idea struck him and he looked left and right quickly. Seeing no one looking at that precise moment, he took the semi-conscious girl into the ladies toilets.

As space was required, he went into the disabled cubicle, and lowered her down. She let out a soft moan as he let go and whimpered pitifully. Shivering, she made a feeble effort to move toward the toilet, choking sounds coming from her throat. Kai bent down and physically pulled her head over the toilet bowl and held it there as she vomited again and again.

* * *

Sobbing, Ming Ming rested her head on the cool porcelain, retching emptily. Even with her eyes shut the world spun dizzyingly. She couldn't form a coherent thought, all she could do was float in this horrible sea of misery and pain. Her stomach, both inside and out, burned as if someone had held a red-hot poker to her skin, and a nasty headache was pulsing behind her left eye. She flinched automatically as something cold and soft touched her cheek.

"Hold still." Kai's voice seemed to be coming from far away. She tried her best to stop shaking, to stop her face twisting in silent sobs, but it was hard. Suddenly, pain flared briefly on her cheek. She winced and tried to move away, vaguely feeling Kai's restraining grip on her arm. A pause, then the pain again. "What the hell?" Kai muttered. Ming Ming heard him faintly, and realisation hit her in a painful burst. Panic shot through her and momentarily shoved the drunkenness aside. Her eyes opened.

* * *

"No…" Kai stared into her half-open eyes. Clouded ruby gazed up at him, begging helplessly. He looked from her pleading gaze to the livid hand mark that marred her cheek, and gingerly wiped at it again with the damp, folded up piece of toilet paper in his hand. "No…" she whispered again, her pupils dilating with an emotion that Kai hesitantly identified as fear. Obediently, he put the damp paper down, and rubbed his index finger over the mark instead, feeling how hot the skin was, tracing the virtual hand print with his finger.

"What happened?" he asked her, never breaking their eye contact. She froze for a second, even her sleepy, bewildered blinking ceased, then she came back to life and shook her head from side to side. Silky blue curls spilled over her shoulders and Kai's supporting arm.

"Not…telling." she managed at last, the faintest hint of a smile twitching at the very corner of her mouth. Kai opened his mouth to try again, but stopped himself. She was in no state to answer questions. "It hurts…" Yet another tear spilled from the corner of her eye and her face took on an upset expression. "It hurts…and it's all _his _fault…" One hand rose weakly to her mouth as she gagged again and vomited up bile. She pulled back, and suddenly she was crying, not just shedding tears but loud, hiccupping sobs, her beautiful face screwed up in anguish. "It _hurts_!" she wailed, desperation loud in her trembling voice. Kai uncomfortably reached out to her in an inadequate effort at comfort, only to notice that she didn't seem to be complaining about her face anymore. Both arms were wrapped protectively around her stomach and she was curled up tightly, the two things that Kai associated the most with stomach pain.

Slowly, he eased her arms away and raised up her top. Outwardly, all he did was raise a casual eyebrow at the horrendous, purple and black bruise that marred her flat stomach.

Inwardly, he was murderous. Boiling in an mental sea of rage, he didn't notice as he spoke aloud.

"The person who did this will be begging to die when I'm done with them." he whispered, every word crisp and icy-cold with an anger unlike anything that he had ever felt before. "And then I'll kill them. Slowly." His amethyst eyes were jet black and Dranzer's flames licked around his rigid body.

_Very slowly_.

* * *

I'm not sure whether I like this. I like the length it is, (grins)but I had a slight problem with the whole drunk thing, considering I've never been drunk in my life and don't have a clue what it's like. So, that was my attempt. Please tell me if it was at all accurate?

Okay, review! (puppy-dog eyes)


	5. Chapter 5

Yay, next chapter! (grins) A big thank you to Lamanth for telling me to get on with this - (I wrote a page and a half in a day!) and to AnimeQueen48 for being my beta! (hugs both)

Apologies if the formatting looks at all strange, AnimeQueen48 and I have differing opinions when it comes to paragraphs! (laughs) So it's a bit of mine and a bit of hers, I think...

Anyway, I'll shut up now. Enjoy!

--------------------

Hours later, Ming Ming began to emerge from the horrible, dream-filled sleep that she had been in. Shifting slightly, she realised that she was curled up in an uncomfortable ball on the floor. Uncurling herself, she looked around the cubicle and saw Kai sitting at the far end, his face dark and brooding, eyes unfocused. One hand was resting loosely on a bent leg, Dranzer clutched tightly in that hand, while the other was behind him, acting as support.

She tried to stand, and managed it on the third attempt. Her mouth felt dry and there was a sour taste as she licked her lips. Pain, white-hot and violent, stabbed behind her eyes, and she felt sick. Shakily, she tried to take a step forward, putting both hands flat against the wall for balance.

Hearing her movement at last, Kai blinked a few times and focused on her. Standing up, his stiff joints complaining only a little, he covered the distance between them in two strides.

"You feeling better?" he asked, his voice infuriatingly hoarse. She nodded, and then winced.

"Not…really." she whispered at last.

"Hangover?"

"Uh-huh." Even just those simple syllables had her gagging. Gently, Kai took her by the upper arms and sat her down. Sitting down in front of her, he swept a lock of damp hair away from her forehead and gave a half-smile. Ming Ming smiled back, a weak, trembling expression.

"You're being nice." she pronounced drowsily. Kai stiffened, frowning. She giggled feebly. "Don't stop just 'cause I said you were!" she chided. Kai rolled his eyes and moved away a little. Time went by, and Ming Ming drifted back into a heavy doze, occasionally jerking out of it at the slightest noise and making her headache far worse. Eventually, she shook herself more or less awake. "What's the time?" Kai squinted at his watch. His eyes widened and he swore softly.

"Seven am." he replied. A bolt of fright shot through Ming Ming and she shivered involuntarily, giving her head another painful throb.

"What are we going to do?" she asked hurriedly. Kai shrugged.

"I'll sort it." He turned to face Ming Ming, and she shrank backward at the hard look on his handsome face. "Now, do you want to explain that?" He pointed to her face. Instinctively, both hands flew to her cheek and her mind raced for a cover story.

"I-I fell - and…" Kai was shaking his head slowly. "What? It's none of your business, anyway!" she snapped, scrambling to her feet.

"You fell, and gave yourself a handprint on your cheek? You gave yourself such a landing that you bruised your entire stomach?" he said quietly.

Fear, pure and simple, made Ming Ming's blood run icy-cold.

"You might not remember, Ming Ming, but I saw the marks." Ming Ming sank down to the floor, shivering.

"It's none of your business." she repeated in a sullen whisper, cradling her aching head in both hands. Cool, rough hands cupped her hot face and raised it upwards until ruby met amethyst. They stared at each other silently for a few seconds, and suddenly Kai stood.

"If that's the way you want it." he said curtly. "Now then, here's what we're going to do…"

_--------------------_

_I can't believe I'm doing this … Toni's going to really hurt me this time … _Ming Ming fretted silently. She shot a look at Kai, staring out of the taxi window with his arms folded, and her blind panic receded slightly. _If I can convince him to stay for a while, Toni might be put off a bit… _Feeling a little better, mentally at least, she sat back and tried to ignore the relentless pounding in her head and twisting, sick feeling in her stomach.

"We're here." Kai said flatly. She jerked her head up, pain flaring, and stared out the window. So they were.

"How did you know?" she asked in astonishment. A smirk tugged at the corner of Kai's mouth, but he said nothing. "Oh, you're Kai the All-knowing now, are you?" she grumbled, opening the door. Something soft bumped against her arm and she looked around.

"Here."

Kai was holding out his jacket, a slightly sardonic smile on his face. "You don't exactly look respectable." For the first time in hours, Ming Ming looked down at herself, at her crumpled, stained clothes and the amount of skin they were exposing and blushed so hotly that it quite literally felt as though her face was on fire. Hastily, she grabbed the bulky jacket and wrapped it round herself.

"Thanks." she mumbled.

Kai grunted, his face closing in on itself as they both got out of the taxi. _Oh great, he's done another schizophrenic one-eighty again_. she complained in her head. A half-hearted grin spread across her face. _Maybe that's a good thing. I want Toni to be scared for once_. And if anyone can scare him, she reasoned, walking with no little nervousness to her front door, it's Kai. Especially in this mood.

"_Bonjour? _Oh, Kai, isn't it?" Toni said easily. "What are you doing here? And where has Ming Ming been?"

"We were at that press conference, remember?" Ming Ming said quickly. Toni's face hardened and he subtly turned away from her, focusing all his considerable charisma on Kai.

"Let me rephrase that; why does she look somewhat … disreputable?" he inquired, his tone deceptively light. Kai regarded the younger male coldly.

"Someone spiked her drink. She was in no state to return home." Toni shrank before Kai's practised indifference and monotone reply.

"Oh, okay." he agreed, smiling. That'll teach her the dangers of drinking then, won't it?" He laughed. Kai smiled thinly, an expression that even Ming Ming, battling a severe headache, could see had nothing to do with humour. "Come on, Ming Ming. You look like you could do with a lie-down. Would you like a drink of anything, Kai?" Kai hesitated, opening his mouth to reply in the negative. Ming Ming shot him a quick, pleading look.

"I wouldn't mind a coffee." he said grudgingly. Toni nodded and disappeared into the house. As Ming Ming went past Kai, she was positive she heard him mutter something under his breath that made her aching cheeks spread into a wide grin.

"I _hate_ this guy."

She went inside, hearing the door click shut behind her as Kai followed.

--------------------

Lying down on the sofa after downing three glasses of water and two painkillers and closing her eyes, she listened to the dim murmurs coming from the kitchen through a haze. It was good to know that Toni's silver tongued-charm didn't work on everybody. But then, nothing seemed to get past Kai, did it? He had known within minutes that she was more than she appeared to be at the airport. He had the uncanny ability to cut through to the heart of someone or something with just a few well-placed looks or words.

She wondered if he was lonely, if it was lonely to know so much. She wondered if his taciturn, indifferent personality was a mask in itself, and the softer, friendlier side that she had glimpsed on those rare occasions was his true personality. She wondered why he needed his mask. She wondered … she wondered …

--------------------

She surfaced, feeling heavy and groggy. Her eyelids wouldn't stay open for more than a few seconds, but that was long enough to make out Kai's blurry form towering over her. Using all her strength, she pushed herself shakily into a sitting position, only to find hands gently pushing her back down again. More awake now, she blinked curiously at him.

"I've overstayed my welcome, I think." Kai said in a low voice. She smiled at him.

"Okay … bye…" she whispered sleepily. His face suddenly took on a hard appearance again.

"One thing." Without any warning, he pushed up her creased blouse and put his hand flat on her bruised stomach. Heat spread through her in a wave and she caught her breath. His eyes were glittering with something that she was too tired to place, intense and blazing. "That was him, wasn't it?" She nodded, and watched in fascination as his eyes darkened with anger and …something else? Their faces were mere centimetres apart, their gazed locked. A thought started to form in Ming Ming's mind, but she pushed it away, rejected it as ridiculous.

Kai stood abruptly and strode away with long, almost hurried strides. He didn't hear her soft murmur, surprised and sad at his hasty departure.

"Bye bye, Kai …"

--------------------

Kai walked until his calves burnt and cramped and his head thudded in time with his quick heartbeat. Nausea swirled in his stomach. With an inaudible sigh, he slowed his pace to near immobility and shoved his hands in his pockets. He knew that he didn't exactly look his best either, but right now he couldn't have cared less.

His hands were damp with sweat, his whole body hot in a way that had nothing to do with the forced walk. He was breathing rapidly, his eyes wide with shock.

One second more, one single second more crouching there, one hand on her soft, flat stomach and staring into her eyes, and he would have kissed her. And he doubted he would have stopped there. A shiver ran through him at how easily his iron-hard self-control had melted away. What had made it even worse was that he had seen the flicker of desire in her eyes as he stared. She probably hadn't even registered it; but he had, and it had scared the life out of him because it rid him of one of his most convincing arguments for keeping his distance. If there was attraction on both sides, then she was a dangerous person to be around.

It was wrong, he told himself firmly. She was only fifteen, it was _illegal,_ for heaven's sake! And what was it about her he found so unexplainably appealing, anyway? He hoped that it wasn't her innocent appearance, he hoped like hell that he wasn't turning into that kind of man. She was a child, he was an adult. Nothing could happen. And nothing would, he would make sure of that.

If that meant not seeing her for a while, then so be it. Toni wouldn't _dare_ try anything now. He thought that he had done quite a good job of scaring the younger male out of his wits.

Calmer now, he nodded to himself.

_Bye for now, Ming Ming. _he thought.

_Until we meet again_.

--------------------

Ming Ming climbed the stairs wearily. Her quick nap hadn't done much good, and she felt sluggish and achy all over. She just wanted to get to bed …

The world spun around her in a kaleidoscope of colour and her back hit the banister painfully. Turquoise dominated her field of vision as Toni put his acne-ravaged face very close to hers. His breath stank.

"What were you doing with that Kai, hey? I saw the way you looked at each other! Don't you dare think you can start a relationship with him. Apart from anything else, if you slept together he would go to prison. And your image would be ruined. Now, we can't have that, can we?" Ming Ming tried to speak, only to cry out as he slapped her viciously round the mouth. Blood spilled from her lower lip and dribbled down her chin.

"Toni…" she forced out.

"You go near him again, you call him, you so much as look at him on television and I'll beat you up so badly that you have to go to hospital, and tell them he did it." He grabbed her round the waist and hauled her over his shoulder. Pacing into her room, he dumped her on her bed, spat at her, and left, slamming the door shut. Through the door, he yelled; "Maman and Papa are coming home tomorrow; you'd better be back to normal by then, or else!"

The minutes ticked by. Tiring of waiting, Toni stomped downstairs. Hearing him go, Ming Ming finally moved. Crawling up to her pillow and burying her bloody face in it, she sobbed her heart out.

--------------------

Evil Toni! (laughs insanely) He'll get his come-uppance, promise! Angst, yay! (evil grin) This shouldn't go on for more than a chapter or two more. Although the amount of times I've said that and then carried on for another four... (winces) Anyway, please review!

Iluvbeyblade

xxx


	6. Chapter 6

I'm back! (grins) Thank you to **Spiritual Energy**, **Lamanth**, **li'l goth**, **Ms. Hiwatari**, **Zephyr Blue**, **NiennaAngel**, **LettuceNPuding** and **dong-chun-mei **for reviewing the last chapter! Luv you all! (glomps reviewers)

I know, it's been months since an update, I'm sorry!! This update is for a certain storm cloud, who's been "casually" mentioning this, every now and again.

Well, I made good use of the first time I've ever skived off my drama group!

Enjoy!

* * *

Ming-Ming burrowed further into her mother's warm embrace and let out an inaudible sigh. With their parents back, Toni would finally leave her alone, stop his constant, almost obsessive scrutiny of everything she did and everywhere she went.

"_Salut, Maman_." she murmured. Raising her head, she smiled at her mother. Matching ruby eyes twinkled benevolently back at her, and a cool, plump hand tickled her still-painful stomach playfully. Biting back a gasp, she nevertheless couldn't stop her stomach jerking reflexively away. Her mother didn't take any notice, attributing it to an automatic reaction to being tickled.

"Hi, sweetheart! Have you started any work on that new single you were working on before we left?" Ming-Ming blushed and shook her head sheepishly. The song was typical of the tunes that she had been churning out since she was about eight; bright, cheerful, upbeat. Right now, she couldn't imagine ever feeling any of those things for a long, long time. If ever.

"I'm not really in the mood, Maman." she mumbled guiltily. "I'll tell you when it's all sorted out, okay?"

"What's up, angel?" She was crushed in another tight hug. "Is something the matter?" Ming-Ming shrugged.

"It's nothing, Maman. Really. I'm just feeling a bit down, that's all." she lied though her teeth.

"Well, okay, sweetheart. Remember, your papa and I are always here if you need anything."

"I know. Thanks, Maman."

Locking herself in her room, she wept silently. An aching emptiness had settled over her since the day before, a tight, constricting tug in her chest and abdomen that wouldn't go away. Without thinking about it, she began to sing, the simple words welling up from somewhere deep inside her and forming a soft, lamenting tune that seemed to fit her mood perfectly. It wasn't a song as such, more a dirge, a collection of words strung together to try and help her understand what was spinning through her head.

_I hurt, and I don't know why._

_It hurts, and I want to cry._

_Why do I feel like I do?_

_Is it something to do with you?_

_Tears streaming down my face,_

_Nothing is the same anymore._

_Since you came,_

_Since you cared,_

_Nothing feels the same._

_Why do I put up with him?_

_Why don't I fight him?_

_Why can't I fight him?_

_He hurts me, but I know why._

_He hurts inside, because of me._

_I hurt inside, because of you._

_You left me. _

_He hates me._

_Do you?_

"Do you?" she repeated, the emotion-filled, drawn-out, melodic notes replaced by a broken whisper. "Did I do something wrong?" Sighing softly, she turned to the mirror and took out her make-up, making herself quickly into the little plastic doll the world loved.

--------

Staring at the screen in front of him, Kai let out a stream of swear words.

"What was that, twelve different languages? Do you even know what they all mean?" the man next to him asked exasperatedly.

"Eleven if you're counting Mandarin and Cantonese under the heading of Chinese like most people do, and yes, I know _exactly_ what they all mean." Kai replied curtly, his mind whirling as he stared at the damning figures on the screen. The man leaned over to see what he was so upset about and chuckled darkly.

"That's what happens if your boss gets sent to prison. The company goes under. Think you can do anything, kiddo?" Kai's lip curled at the sneering tone.

"We'll see, won't we?" Ignoring any further comments, he continued viewing the various flaws and outright bankruptcies flashing up on the screen like messages of doom.

--------

Ten hours and various phone calls and meetings later, he leaned back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair.

"Fuck…" he muttered. He'd had no idea how close his grandfather's company were to complete bankruptcy. Profits were non-existent, and after the scandal of Biovolt three years ago, all but the shadiest, most unreliable shareholders had withdrawn their stakes. Stocks were at an all-time high, but only because no one was buying them.

Kai's eyes widened as a thought struck him with all the force of a sledgehammer. This company controlled the money that he received monthly and relied on for everything. Food, hotel rents, even new parts for Dranzer since Kenny had decided that it was too expensive to send them to wherever Kai said he was in the world. If the company went bankrupt, that income stopped dead.

"Aw, you finally realised how spoiled you've been over the years?" Kai spun around with a deadly glare. "Don't go all uppity on me, you brat. I've seen the amount that comes out of our funds to provide for your gallivanting. You've never done a day's work in your life, have you? Just played with your spinning top and enjoyed the fame." Kai stared in disbelief at the speaker, fury bubbling in his chest.

The old man took a step forward, regarding Kai sternly from underneath busy grey eyebrows.

--------

"Papa?" The bulky man turned to face his son. While both children had inherited their mother's hair with no trace of their father's thick black curls, Toni had received the man's startling turquoise eyes.

"Yes, Antoine?" The man looked alarmed. Toni had an expression of intense worry and guilt on his angular face.

"I'm worried for Mimi." he said, using her pet name as their parents did, and hiding how bitter it felt on his tongue. "She saw another beyblader in the airport and was just casually friendly, as you'd expect." Their father nodded slowly. "But he kept turning up whenever she went, and he brought her back from a press conference something like eleven hours late, and in a horrible state."

"Did you talk to him?" their father demanded, worry etching its way onto his face. Toni nodded gravely.

"He was very rude to me, and I'm positive he tried to kiss Mimi while she was asleep." Their father's eyes widened in shock and fury, and Toni allowed himself a private gloat. He had the old man right where he wanted him. "I think he was eighteen." he said, almost casually. "He was called Kai."

"Well Toni, if this "Kai" comes near my daughter again, I will go to the police. Thank you, son." They shook hands formally, two men meeting a satisfactory agreement.

--------

Kai's head hurt, his eyes stung, and his wrist was suffering jolts of pain every time he typed - the disadvantage of typing with one hand. He had been sitting in front of the same computer for thirty-six hours straight, fielding calls, emails, and "advice" - more like orders - from his self-appointed mentor. Bastard. There really weren't enough words in any language to describe how much he hated that man by now. Someone that old shouldn't have that much stamina, he thought sullenly.

He shoved himself backwards, nearly toppling his chair.

"I've had enough!" he shouted, receiving only a patient, patronising look in return that riled him up further. "This isn't me, ok? I'm a blader, not a businessman!"

"You like the fame." It was a statement, not a question, spoken with such venom that Kai went hot with an unreasonable shame. "You like the crowds screaming your name; you yearn to be known as the best." Both were silent for a few seconds, the air between them charged with white-hot glares. "But, do you love the journalists that live to find scandal? They find it with you and exploit it! Exploit _you_! Do you like knowing that you're not the best, that you never will be unless you can hang on until Tyson and Brooklyn are gone, be a dinosaur in a world that thrives on young teenagers?"

"Tyson will never give up as long as I'm still there!" Kai snapped.

"Oh, you egotistical little _brat_!" the old man said, with an angry, world-weary sigh. "Will you spend the rest of your life in this fool sport?"

"Yes!" came the defiant reply.

"You won't! You can't! All sports, no matter what they are, have an age where you have to retire! Not because you've lost interest, or because your life is just too busy, but because your body can no longer cope with it! Yes, at the moment, you're in the prime of your life - you couldn't be stronger or fitter, you're focused on that elusive goal of perfection. But what of the passing years? Can you truthfully tell me that in ten years, you'll still have the passion for the sport, the urge to spend one spinning top crashing against another? A decade after that and a decade after that, will your body be able to cope with the elemental forces of a bit-beast at full power? It won't, Kai! And where the hell will you be then? An unqualified, homeless, jobless man, who wasted his life on an unachievable goal!"

"_Shut up_!" For a split second, the room's temperate spiked at one akin to a furnace and dark, deep blue and dusky red flames outlined the young man's body, his eyes incandescent. The old man, his throat raw from the unaccustomed shouting, blinked to get rid of the spots dancing in front of his eyes. When he opened them again, the only sign that Kai had ever been there was the smell of hot metal.

With a tired sigh, the old man sat down and looked sadly out of the door. Why did the boy never _listen_?

His godson hadn't changed since he had last seen him as a small, round, supercilious boy of six. Single-minded, stubborn, and with a self-destructive streak that burnt anyone he came into contact with.

He had only been trying to tell him what was going to happen, to give him a taste of the work he would no doubt be doing when he finally quit beyblading. But would he listen? Of course not! As bad as his grandfather, the boy was. Obsessed with a mere game! Pathetic! Grumbling, he set about straightening up the room, leaving the problem of the Hiwatari heir for later. Let the kid cool off.

--------

A gang of seventeen year-old's faced Kai with varying expressions of bravado on their faces.

"Come on then, hard-case." one of them taunted. Kai couldn't understand the slang, but their expressions and body language told him exactly what he wanted to hear. With a metallic click that was drowned out by the angry pounding in his head, he readied Dranzer for launch, and gave the boys a horrible, vicious little smile as they copied him.

Eight against one. He almost felt sorry for them.

His mind was dead with anger, focused into a terrifying point of rage. Tactics were out of the question here; this was all about getting this anger out of him, anger that was spawned from hearing things that he didn't want to hear, didn't want to know.

Beyblading was forever. This was forever, and forever was here and now.

--------

"_Solar Flare_!" Incredible, skin-stripping, bone-bleaching heat; his blade a starry blur against the flames of his phoenix. All his competitors had fled, their blades melted to puddles on the cement, which was also bubbling ominously.

Cowards. Stinking cowards.

He was gasping for breath, tendons pushing against the reddened, blotchy skin of his neck, arms and legs, eyelids so far apart that his eyeballs were drying out, shaking violently, tremors coursing through the body that was encased in a pillar of molten fire.

His mind was blank, blind, white-hot, power and fury shuddering through him in a thrill that was almost orgasmic.

He would blade forever. _Forever_!

Could Tyson stand against _this_? A cry ripped from his throat, a primeval scream of rage.

--------

Passers-by avoided the strange glowing area of the street, even more so when they heard the unearthly yell, whispered to each other, "fou", crazy, and looked over their shoulders in fear.

None of them felt the fear that Kai was feeling as he pushed himself beyond any misty idea of limitations. The sheer, blind terror was so intense that it had emerged in this awful, terrifying, horrific power-burst that threatened to devastate anything that stood in its path.

Fear of what the old man had told him. Fear of a future without the thing that had shaped his life, his very being.

He was a beyblader. If he couldn't be … then he was nothing. He reached deep inside himself, and gave it one, desperate, final push.

A different kind of whiteness exploded in front of his eyes, then a deep, welcoming blackness.

--------

Ming-Ming yawned, her jaw hurting with the effort. She really needed a drink, but she still had to sing, and any kind of liquid gummed up her throat and made her high notes thin and volume hard to obtain. Stupid voice. No one else's did that. Stupid! Grumbling under her breath, her lips moving soundlessly, she headed back to recording room.

_Da da, da da, da daaaa_. Reminding herself yet again to change her ring-tone, she scrabbled for her phone.

"_Salut_?"

"Ming-Ming?"

"_Oui_?" she replied curiously. The smooth male voice wasn't ringing any immediate bells …

"You don't know me, but I saw you and Kai Hiwatari at the press conference a few weeks ago," Ming-Ming involuntarily tensed, "and you seemed like friends or whatever. Anyway, I just found him in the street - he looks like he's in a pretty bad way. You might want to come."

"Look, how the hell did you get this number?"

"I have my ways, Mimi." The girl's blood ran cold. No one knew that name apart from family, and the people who she had worked with when she was very young.

"Who the hell are you?" she hissed.

"That doesn't matter." The caller hung up. Ming-Ming stared at her phone in silent shock.

What did she do now?

What the hell did she do now?

* * *

Hope you all liked! Only one or two chaps left - please vote whether you want a happy or sad ending! 

Review!?

xIlbx


	7. Chapter 7

So then. Hi. If anyone is actually reading this, I would strongly recommend rereading at least the previous chapter, if not the whole thing, because -I- forgot some of this and I wrote it!

This is, as per usual for this fic, for **Lamanth**, because I have the impression her life could be better at the moment. It was also supposed to be her birthday present. I hope it was worth the wait, _mon coeur_.

This was supposed to be one chapter. 9,000+ words later, I decided, maybe not.

* * *

Ming-Ming put her phone back in her pocket, her mind racing at top speed and getting nowhere fast as she stood helplessly in the doorway of the recording studio. Kai was … what, hurt or … sick … where? Where was he? And who had phoned? How had they known her number? Wait, what was the likelihood that they were even telling the truth, whoever they were?

The sound of an ambulance approaching at speed interrupted her tail-chasing thoughts and acting on a wild impulse, she jogged after it. It was just plausible, she reasoned, that whoever had rung her had rung the emergency services first. But, in that case, then he really had been telling the truth and Kai _was_ seriously ill for whatever reason.

She sped up, soon discovering to her concern that she could follow the ambulance when it was out of sight by listening to the gossip of the people around her – they spoke of a crazy foreigner and a great flash of light and heat. Worry tightened its coils around her and squeezed the chill of panic into her bloodstream.

Fifteen minutes later, she admitted a panting defeat. Down, yes, but not out; she knew from the logo that she had briefly caught sight of on the side of the ambulance which hospital it was heading for and it wasn't far away.

* * *

Ming-Ming wasn't sure whether to be pleased or not that she hadn't been recognised at the reception desk. It had meant that she got less attention, which would mean less attention given to Kai. Good. But on the other hand it meant that she had to wait in a long line before being able to ask where Kai was and could she see him, please?

So now she was wandering around the hospital, doing her best to follow the instructions she had been given, but directions were never her forte and she had a feeling that she should have turned left, not right, at that last corridor. Nervously, she approached a harrassed-looking nurse and asked if she was going the right way to get to the intensive care ward.

_Intensive care_. The words made her shiver all over again. A cold stone of dread weighed her insides down. What had _happened_? Then there was the other issue of who the man who had phoned her was and how he had known her nickname - and whether he had hurt Kai - but that could wait until later. She just needed to see Kai.

The nurse looked at her sympathetically but again without any recognition of her fame, and some of this mess inside her head spilled out over her tongue in soft, stumbling explanation. Upon hearing Kai's name, the nurse's face changed into one of relief.

"You're looking for Kai Hiwatari, right?"

Ming-Ming nodded.

"Do you speak Japanese?"

She nodded again.

"Thank goodness!" The nurse began shepherding her along the corridor. "He's not saying much at the moment, but what he_ is _saying no-one can understand. And he's got this colourful metal thing in a death grip in his hand."

"His beyblade," Ming-Ming clarfied automatically. The nurse's expression screwed up in thoughtful puzzlement for a second, but then she smiled.

"Oh, the supernatural spinning top sport. My daughter tries to tell me about that. Is he good?"

"One of the best in the world."

"Well!" The nurse looked impressed. Ming-Ming forced a smile. Nothing hard there, she'd been forcing smiles for so many years. But no, just like Kai, this woman saw straight through to the fear underneath.

"I'm sorry, dear. Do you know anything about Kai's condition?"

"No!" The word burst from her in a spurt of frustration.

The nurse explained. After recieving an anonymous emergency call - obviously from the same man who had rung her, Ming-Ming thought - an ambulance had been sent out. It found Kai lying unconscious in an alleyway, his skin a hot, dry red colour, with a fast heartbeat and faster breathing. It had been clear that he was suffering from severe heatstroke. Before the paramedics had set to work cooling him, his temperature had been nudging 42 degrees Celsius. He had gone through two seizures in the ambulance. He had only been in the hospital for half an hour, and in that time they had concentrated on bringing his temperature down to a relatively safe 39 degrees.

"So he's out of danger now?"

"Essentially, yes, though we still need to run several tests to be sure."

They reached the double doors of the intensive care ward. The nurse pushed the button that opened them and ushered Ming-Ming in. She told her the bed number and warned, "He's probably still unconscious, and what he says when he wakes might not make much sense."

"It'll make more sense to me than to you," Ming-Ming pointed out with a shrill laugh born from nervousness. The nurse agreed with a sympathetic look that said she'd seen through Ming-Ming's cutesy mask again.

Kai's skin was still red - well, the little of it she could see under the thin blanket spread over him, the intravenous drip in his left hand and the oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. Machines beeped eeriely.

This was terrifying. Seeing him like this. This was _Kai_. The most stubborn beyblader on the circuit, the man who had staggered to his feet no matter how many times Brooklyn had knocked him down.

And then she saw Dranzer in his right hand and nearly screamed. The blade was charred and melted, the attack ring twisted into unearthly shapes, and even from where she stood at the foot of the bed, she could see the puffy white blisters all over that hand.

"What did you _do_?" she asked under her breath, taking a step forwards. The tips of the fingers on one hand brushed tentatively against the white sheet. Now that she had seen that, if she really concentrated she could still feel the disturbance in the atmosphere that meant recent bit-beast activity. Even assuming Kai had done whatever he had done virtually as the ambulance pulled up, Dranzer had still been inactive for a little over half an hour. And she was_ sure _it was longer. How powerful had that blast _been_?

She looked quickly over her shoulders. No-one was looking at her. Again, no-one seemed to recognise her, or, perhaps in here, they just didn't care. Good. _Good_. She sat down on the bed, her hip level with the top of his thigh. Swallowing a sudden lump in her throat, she reached out and put her hand on top of his fist and made an attempt at getting the fingers to uncurl. It didn't work, though she did get a worrying glimpse of drying blood along his knuckles where the metal attack ring had dug in.

"Come on," she whispered, tugging a bit harder now. "Come on, Kai. Let _go_."

But that was the one thing Kai couldn't do, wasn't it?

She gave up. Spent some time staring at Kai and wondering in an absentmind sort of way why she suddenly cared this much. It didn't feel wrong. It didn't even feel new. It felt like he had slipped into the hollow place in her heart that had thudded away icily for all her teenage years this far, and filled it completely. Like it had been made for him. Like she had simply been waiting all these years for him to come along, all cold and strong and harsh and toss her world awry.

She noticed that she was still holding his hand. No-one was looking, so she didn't even consider stopping.

* * *

Kai couldn't ever remember waking up feeling so uncomfortable. He was hot and thirsty, felt sick and had a pounding headache. Still, he couldn't quite bring himself to care. It was as though he was noticing all this through a thick, fluffy barrier of cotton wool. Opening his eyes was far too much bother.

"Kai?" A little, hopeful voice wriggled its way into his muddled mind. Ming-Ming, he identified instantly. How he knew her voice so certainly and immediately after only a few days of talking to her and in his current state was a conundrum better saved for later. "Kai, could you open your eyes. Please?"

Damn her. Damn her and that vulnerable note in her voice that spoke of tears if not now then soon, and galvanised him to _try_.

Eyes open a slit. Headache quadrupled. Fuzzy blob of aqua; must be her. Pressure on his hand, was that her too? He tried to sit up to see, but holy shit that was tiring, and anyway before he'd so much as got his shoulders off the mattress she had put out her tiny hand, put it square on his chest, and told him to lie back down and rest.

First she wanted him to do things, then she didn't. Frustrating girl!

Her hand was nice on his chest. Cool and soft.

"I melted the ground," he told her proudly, before the bed rose up and folded him into a comforting world of grey.

* * *

"You melted the ground?" Ming-Ming repeated softly, knowing from the way Kai's head lolled back against the pillow that he had passed out again. Or possibly fallen asleep. What did she know, after all? "The _ground_?" She shook her head slowly, staring at Kai's flushed face in disbelief. Not disbelief that he'd melted the ground; that sort of made sense with Dranzer's power surge and Kai's state and his hand and everything. No. Not that he had done it. Just that he _could_ do it.

After she had seen Tyson defeat Brooklyn, she had thought that she had seen it all it terms of power, that nothing could ever surprise her again. In a way, she had, but what she _hadn't_ seen the best of was breaking boundaries. That was what Kai did. Every limit that was placed on his ability by misguided match analysts as a result of a beybattle, he exploded in his next. He forced his way past those barriers with ripped clothes and screams and wild eyes and overwhelming rage.

He had always been frightening to watch because of his aggressive style, but oh. This was something new. No-one had ever allowed their bit-beast's power to affect them before. She hadn't even known it _could _be done. It implied simultaneously a mastery of the bit-beast, in order to push the power to the next level, and an utter loss of control, in order to harm the 'blader. It was as though he had fought a world-class match _against himself_.

Ah, Ming-Ming thought, watching Kai's chest rise and fall under her fingers. That might well have been it. The fact that Kai used his undoubted anger issues to power Dranzer was well-known. But to use them in that way! She shuddered.

That train of thought ended, she suddenly realised where her hand still was; resting on Kai's chest. She could feel his heartbeat, the rise and fall of his lungs, and the softest, downiest covering that laid the path for future chest hair. The blanket laid over him had fallen to just below his stomach when he had attempted to sit up, and the knowledge that he was _utterly naked _underneath it hit Ming-Ming so hard that her head reeled. She took her hand away as if it was burnt.

A hot ache flared into throbbing life between her legs. Stop it, she told herself fiercely, just stop it! It's ... inappropriate! She wriggled uncomfortably on the mattress and felt her face turning red. She sat on her hands to try and stop the tempting thoughts that were raiding her mind. Seriously, she snarled in her head, seriously, just stop. If our positions were reversed, even the fact that he was thinking it would be wrong beyond belief. Well, it should be the same here. Think rape, Mimi. No, no, no, don't think about how it would be done! Just as she was about to bite her arm, very hard, a better distraction occurred.

Kai's eyes opened almost fully and he stared up at her with a confused expression. Explanation time, then, Ming-Ming thought with relief, even as she crossed her legs as tightly as possible.

"You did whatever the hell you did with Dranzer, which landed you in hospital with heatstroke and you had two seizures, and whoever found you rang me. I think. I don't know who he was." She tried to keep her voice as even as possible, but couldn't suppress a nervous giggle at the end. That phonecall was far too scary to think about properly.

Kai looked at her again, not quite blankly, but she was sure he hadn't fully taken in what she'd just said.

"Are you all right?" she asked, a touch more softly.

"I'm thirsty," he replied hoarsely. A quick look around located a jug of water and a stack of plastic cups on the nurses' station on the other side of the room.

"Ok. Stay there," she said and hurried off. Ok, so 'stay there' was stupid. He was hardly going to move. Never mind, she scolded herself. And never mind that your hands feel cold now they're not in contact with him. Water. Pour. Good.

She sat back on the bed and offered the cup to him. He reached out with his left hand first, then stared in puzzlement at the intravenous drip embedded in the back of it. He tried to switch to his right hand, but that one was still immovably wrapped around Dranzer. The bewilderment in his half-shut eyes stabbed deep into Ming-Ming's chest and out came a flood of protectiveness.

"Here." She held the water up to his mouth and he drank it faster than she could tip it. Finished, he wiped his mouth with the palm of his left hand and returned to staring at his right hand. A frown creased his forehead, and to Ming-Ming's horror, he began to slowly open his hand. Fresh blood flowed and blisters tore. "Kai, _stop_!" She couldn't imagine how much that hurt.

Amazingly, he stopped when she asked, and the eyes that he turned on her then were a little clearer than they had been before. The power of pain, she thought unsteadily.

"First you want me to do something, then you don't." There was a slight peevishness to his voice.

"I didn't know you were awake the first time," she admitted.

"Neither did I," was his cryptic response. He looked back at Dranzer and his wounded hand, and another frown crossed his face.

"What happened?" Ming-Ming demanded, just in case he was thinking about opening his hand all the way.

"Solar Flare," Kai replied without bothering to look at her. "Dranzer's new attack. I think it went a bit ... wrong."

If Ming-Ming had been a cursing girl, now _would _have been the time.

"A _bit_?" If she hadn't been very aware of where they were, that would have been shrieked rather than hissed, and if Kai hadn't been where_ he_ was, something would have been thrown at him.

"Yeah." His smirk looked tired. "Teach me to 'blade when I'm angry, I suppose."

"Aren't you always angry when you 'blade?" she asked, honestly curious.

Kai shook his head and winced. "Nah. Not ..." He trailed off aimlessly, then jerked back to reality; "Not like I was. I don't 'blade then. Too dangerous." He snorted and closed his eyes briefly.

"Are you all right?" she asked again. Because he was better than he had been a minute ago but definitely still not right.

"Yeah."

She put her face right over his and gave him a sceptical glare.

"Yes!" he said, irritated. She didn't move. He sighed. "I'm fine. Just a bit ... cotton-woolly." He shut his eyes again and rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand.

"Cotton-woolly?" she repeated, squashing the urge to offer to massage his head for him.

"Yeah." He didn't give any further explanation. They sat in silence for several minutes. Ming-Ming nearly jumped out of her skin when a doctor approached and checked Kai's notes and the various machines before introducing herself briskly as Madame Voclain.

"Now then, _Monsieur_," she said to Kai, "your temperature's nice and stable now, but I'd just like to run a few tests to check that the heat didn't damage any internal organs." She opened her mouth to continue, but then pulled a face and turned to Ming-Ming. "Can you translate for me?"

"I shouldn't have to," Ming-Ming said uncertainly. The doctor sighed.

"Well, look." She repeated what she had just to Kai. Ming-Ming saw with a sinking feeling that Kai's expression was both blank and concentrating, like a deaf person trying to lipread - or someone trying to piece together a language they barely knew.

This was insane. Kai spoke French fluently.

"Kai?" she asked with a quiver in her voice. Kai turned a gaze full of fire onto her.

"She's talking too fast," he snapped, and rubbed his head again.

"Would you like me to translate?" she asked uncertainly.

"No, fuck off."

She jerked back as if she had been slapped. Hot tears jabbed at the corners of her eyes. It was really stupid to react like that, but it was one thing to know about Kai's quick temper and asocial behaviour, and another to be on the receiving end of it. Was this really the same person who had laughed with her, helped her when she had had that vodka?

"Why are you even here?" he snarled. She took a subconscious step backwards. As soon as she had done so, however, fury spewed up from somewhere inside her. She stepped forwards again and looked him straight in the eye.

"I'm here because I was worried about you! A little while ago I would have said we were friends, wouldn't you, and friends help each other when they're in trouble!"

"Oh, so, you've paid your debt for me saving your arse with the vodka. You can fuck off home now, back to - " she saw his expression, knew he had remembered about Toni and the bruises and exactly what she might expect if she stormed off home, "- back to Mummy and Daddy, like the spoiled, stupid little girl you are."

_Slap!_

She didn't realise it had been her until her hand started to sting. She had hit him hard across the forehead, making firm, if accidental, contact with his temple, and for a surreal second, she thought she had knocked him out. Then his eyes snapped back into focus again (and she gasped at the pain she saw hidden there) and he told her again to "Fuck _off_!" in a hoarse shout. The doctor looked on in horrified incomprehension.

"You _bastard_," Ming-Ming proclaimed through trembling lips, and swung smartly on her heel, stalking towards the door. .Just as she stabbed the button with her index finger, a call came from behind her.

"Min!"

Min! she thought furiously, debating whether or not to bother turning. What sort of a nickname was that? It wasn't even the full syllable! Was that all she meant to him? Still, she turned, because she couldn't resist.

He had sat up, knocking the blanket even closer to brain-meltingness (even at this time she still noted that and went red). His free left hand was clenched on his knee, further forwards than the right, and it didn't take too much imagination to see him reaching out.

"Min," he called again, more roughly this time. His pride couldn't allow "Please" or "Sorry" or "Stay", but Ming-Ming heard them nonetheless. And yet again, her heart dissolved into a pile of protective goo.

"What do you do to me, Kai?" she mumbled, hitting the button again to close the door. She walked back, but hovered a little distance away from the bed. Slowly, in the closest to Standard French she could muster (she assumed it was the style Kai had first learnt), she asked,

"I am going to buy a drink, what would you like?"

Something flashed in Kai's eyes, and he replied in pure Parisian slang,

"Whatever, I don't care. Something better than this shitty water."

With a wide grin, she opened the door again.

When she returned with a bottle of mineral water for her and a bottle of Lucozade for Kai, she saw with a strange mixture of suprise, relief and disappointment that he was dressed in a hospital gown. Sill not the most modest item of clothing in the world, but not nakedness. He was disscussing with the doctor whether or not he should be kept in intensive care while the doctor added several neurological scans to the check-list that currently held two blood tests, a urine test and a full-body MRI-scan; they were looking for damage to the nervous system, liver, kidney, any other organs, and now evidence of continued seizures as well.

Well. Discussing. More like arguing.

"I don't need all that shit, I'm _fine_."

The doctor's expression was fairly calm, all things considered, as she tried to cajole Kai into seeing sense. So involved were the two in their battle of wills that they both jumped when Ming-Ming sat heavily on Kai's bed and passed him the Lucozade.

"Yeah," she said, fakely casual, "you're a hundred percent fine. That's why you still haven't let go of Dranzer yet."

He turned his wide, angry eyes on her but she stared back coolly this time, grasping at last that Kai's anger wasn't really directed at her.

"Fine," he muttered rebelliously, looking away from her and towards his right hand. With an audible tearing sound, the fist opened the remaining distance and the battered, melted, bloody remains of Dranzer fell onto the white bedsheets. She heard him swallow loudly as he saw it properly, and acting on the same strange sort of instinct that she'd been going with ever since the stranger phoned her, she grabbed his shoulder and shook it fiercely. He went very still, then swallowed again and dipped his shoulder so that her hand fell off.

* * *

Assuming people what _Monsieur_ means.

Reviews per chapter would be appreciated, on the off chance any is reading this who isn't Cloud.

xIlbx


	8. Chapter 8

People may be interested to know that if you add all 3 chapters together, which I am because I wrote them as one, this is the longest thing I've ever written; 1,000 words longer than the final chapter of **The past is the past**.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Kai had convinced the stupid, stubborn doctor that the best compromise would be to run all the tests she wanted, as long as he didn't stay in this ward. He would pay for a private room. He had a moment of guilt about this, remembering the huge chunks of crimson numbers on the Hiwatari Co. balance sheets that were caused by him, but he brushed it aside. This was important. He wasn't ill or anything, didn't need such an important space in bed. Save that for a car crash victim or something.

With the 'discussion' won, he was wheeled briskly away. Ming-Ming trotted beside the trolley like some sort of puppy. They hadn't spoken in the past few minutes. Hadn't exchanged eye contact, either. His head was pounding too hard for thinking, but if he had to, he would admit to himself that there was a fair bit of fear in the air. Suddenly, this had dived deeper than a mere matter of lust. Whatever 'this' was. Fuck it, he'd figure it out later when his body felt like it belonged to him again.

She had Dranzer; she'd held out her hand for it and he'd dropped its remains into her palm without a second's thought. Then his brain had woken up again, and he'd realised what he'd done, but he still hadn't taken it back. Maybe that said it all.

Finally, at_ least _a decade after they'd reached the private room, the babbling doctor shut up and left. For the last time, he Did Not Give A Fuck about those tests.

The click of the door closing sounded very loud all of a sudden. He stared stubbornly at the bedsheet for about twenty years, or so it seemed, then chanced a glance at Ming-Ming who was sitting in the corner.

She was doing the same thing. Shit. Their eyes met and Kai refused, _refused_, to let his gaze drop. Nevertheless, he breathed a silent sigh of relierf when Ming-Ming lowered her eyes.

Awkward. And he didn't know why. Well, he did. But that was complicated, and he was tired.

"How did you know to come and find me?" he asked, to break the itchy silence. Ming-Ming looked at him and chewed her lip briefly.

_Don't _do _that_, his libido begged. Ming-Ming's uneasy expression made him focus again.

"I don't know - except, I do, but it was strange." She stopped and chewed her lip again, whitening it with the pressure of her perfect teeth.

"Could you make less sense?" he grumbled, prodding at his injured hand grimly._ Fuck_, that hurt!

She giggled. "I could. But, um, see, it's because someone rang me and told me."

"Y'what?" Kai looked at her, nonplussed. "Who?"

She shrugged.

Kai thought about it a little more, then grunted his dismissal. He hadn't exactly been low profile in his actions. Half of Paris probably knew that some pyromaniac foreigner had gone nuts with a spinning top. Still ...

"Who were they? Why did they think to ring _you_?" he muttered, not hearing the contempt in the word 'you' until it had left his mouth.

She went pink. Stood up, made as if to walk towards him, then changed her mind and perched on the arm of the chair.

"I don't know. I don't know who they were," she said again. "But they knew _me_." Sudden intensity made her eyes look huge. "They called me Mimi. That's a family nickname _only_."

"Really? Never let it slip in an interview?" Kai was aware that the sarcasm in his voice was bordering on cruel, but he was far too tired to care. Let that hurt look on her face stab guilt deep into his chest. It still didn't hurt as much as his hand.

"Maybe," she said doubtfully. "But still! Even if it was a stalker," he loved the dismissal inherent there, "why would they ring _me_ about _you_?"

He waved one hand in a gesture of cluelessness. She prattled on,

"I remember him saying he saw us at that press do, so maybe a journalist, but it wasn't for very long or doing anything much that would link in any way at all, and anyway that was _weeks_ ago now - "

"Just shut up, already," he growled. He rolled away from her and fought the childish urge to pull the pillow over his head. "I don't care."

"But-"

"Shut up!"

He did _not _care. He was tired and had a headache and felt sick and his hand hurt and Dranzer was broken and there was still a layer of cotton wool over the world so that nothing - made - fucking - sense!

"Here." Her fingers gently brushing his. He opened his hand automatically, receiving Dranzer's burnt husk. And then she didn't remove her hand and he didn't let go, and suddenly Dranzer had rolled onto the bedspread and they were outright _holding hands, a_nd why did this feel familiar?

Her lips were soft against his knuckles. His breath hiccoughed in his throat, and he heard hers do the same. The bed sank to one side as she sat down, radiating warmth that made him realise how cold he was. Her face in his line of vision, eyes huge and puzzled and worried and excited all at once, mouth slightly open and oh _fuck_.

Because kissing her wouldn't be illegal. It would barely even be frowned upon. Why had this not occured to him before? Because one thing leads to another, his conscience kindly reminded him. But ... oh ... just _once_.

As if she'd read his mind (later she would tease him that he couldn't have been more obvious if he had spoken his thoughts aloud), she had leant forwards. One of her hands was splayed on the bed for support, the manicured tip of her little fingernail tickling his upper arm. They both began to tilt their heads the same way, then she laughed and changed, and shut her eyes with all the speed and confidence of a hiding child. Feather-light, their lips brushed together. A tingle ran the full length of his body and he shivered. She smiled, kissed him with more pressure now; he felt the full length of her lips smush against his, dry and soft and warm. Both mouths still chastely closed.

He felt himself getting hard. He tried to wriggle his body away so that she wouldn't notice, but then thought with a sigh of self-disgust that she probably _expected_ it.

The shock of her next movement was almost enough to shrivel him up again. That would have been disappointing, but_ definitely_ not lasted long as, for fuck's sake, she had just run one finger around the bulge in his trousers!

Her eyes looked big enough to drown in.

God, what were the painkillers doing to him?

"_Well_," she whispered, and grinned at him archly. He gaped at her in soundless shock. He hadn't expected that! But then, he asked himself, what _did_ you expect? Did you _want_ to kiss a little girl?

That unsavoury thought reminded him belatedly of her age and his age, and her status and fame and above all, her _image_. Kitschy little doll. Blood began to return to the correct head, and he had enough presence of mind to shake his head.

"No?" she asked despairingly.

"N-" They both jumped inches high as the door slammed open and a gangly figure bounded in.

"Get the fuck away from my sister, you exploitative bastard!" Toni screamed in a voice so high-pitched that it reminded Kai of Hiro's shouting voice, and would have been hilariously funny in any other situation.

Actually, it was still hilarious, and Kai was poised to laugh derisively then rip the little piece of rat shit to shreds when Ming-Ming squeezed his hand so tightly that something creaked and he noticed that Toni wasn't the only person who had just entered.

"Papa!" Ming-Ming yelped. She opened her mouth again but didn't say anything else. Kai watched warily as a Japanese man pushed politely past Toni in order to better survey the situation.

"Antoine informs me, Ming-Ming, that this young man has been causing you problems," he said softly.

"_What_?" Again, Ming-Ming seemed struck almost dumb by the sheer unreality of the current events. Kai looked at Toni, who grinned maliciously for just an instant. Ming-Ming's father continued, his brown eyes darting between Kai and Ming-Ming,

"I have been told that since meeting you, this 'Kai' has harassed you repeatedly; quite possibly he was the one who spiked your drink at that after-conference party you should never have gone to, and goodness knows what advantages he might have taken before returning you home the following morning."

Kai was only staying silent because every time that he so much as grunted, Ming-Ming dug her sharp nails deeply enough into his hand to draw blood.

"I would appreciate, daughter, if under the circumstances, you would remove your hand from his," her father asked. Ming-Ming did so. Immediately Kai sat up, anger blazing through every inch of his body.

"I didn't do _any_ –"

"He is also closely associated with the disreputable company Hiwatari Limited, which pays his many extravagant expenses, and he is in fact the grandson of its previous executive who is currently in jail," Toni said rapidly, his eyes fixed on his father. "He is in hospital today because of a disagreement with said company; unable to control his ferocious temper he used his phoenix bit-beast to wreak havoc on the area around him. It was only by luck that no-one was killed."

Two thoughts were battling for supremacy in Kai's head. They were "How the_ fuck_ does he know that?" and "He's right, damn him to hell. It was pure luck that I was the only one hurt." The chill of the latter thought cooled his bubbling rage enough to allow clear thinking at last. He sat up and inclined his head respectfully towards Ming-Ming's father.

"If I may be permitted to defend myself?" he inquired in Japanese, using the highest form of polite address. Ming-Ming's father blinked at his use of the language. Kai defeated the urge to roll his eyes. He knew he looked like a pure Muscovite, but surely the surname was enough of a hint? "You left the door open when you came in, and unlike your son, I do not believe that accusations of such severity should be thrown around for any passing porter to overhear, especially considering the status of everyone in this room."

Ming-Ming's father frowned and opened his mouth, but Ming-Ming beat him to it;

"You know how good a beyblader I am, Papa?"

"I didn't say you could speak_, mon ange_, but yes, I am aware." Despite his stern words (Kai's blood boiled at the idea that she needed permission to speak!), her father looked proud.

"Well, he's better. You won't find a beyfan that doesn't know his name." Ming-Ming's face was positively glowing with pride as she said this in a chaotic mixture of French and Japanese that Kai guessed was how she usually communicated at home.

"You would refute what my boy says, then?"

Kai nodded. "I consider his accusations to be merely malicious lies and twisted truths."

"You-" At a look from his father, Toni fell sullenly silent. He had a red and white spot pulsing in the middle of his cheek, and he scratched at it irritably.

"And," Kai continued, his temper decidedly fraying, "I would really like to know how he found out about my meeting with the French executive, my unacceptable loss of control afterwards, and my expenses account."

Ming-Ming's father put both hands behind his back and walked over to the corner opposite Ming-Ming, staring thoughtfully at the ground.

"Antoine?" he asked eventually. Toni went red.

"He's a danger to my sister! Ok, so I hired a private investigator! So what?"

"You will not speak to me in that tone," his father said in a voice of steel. With an outraged huff, Toni quieted again. Silence fell. Kai forced himself not to catch Ming-Ming's eye, not wanting to give any sort of impression at all. This had to be the stupidest, most nonsensical situation he'd ever been in. Including life with Tyson. Toni was way more threatening than he had considered – but then, why would he ever have even entertained the notion that the little cock could think up something with such potential repercussions?

"So that was who rang me!" Ming-Ming exclaimed in a satisfied tone. Kai risked a look at her. She was taking her phone from her pocket and scrolling. Probably looking for the number. The absurd thought that she was actually _saving_ the number, under something like 'PI', made Kai choke down unexpected laughter.

"Put that crappy thing away when Papa's talking," Toni ordered petulantly. Ha, Kai thought nastily, trying to regain power, are we?

"Just because you think that _le portable_ is a ridiculous invention that compromises privacy and you won't have one," she sing-songed back at him. Again, Kai 'coughed'. Compromised privacy? What a cock.

"Enough, children." Their father looked at them both searchingly, then at Kai. "I think I need to have a long talk with both my children. I trust, Mimi, you have much to say?"

"Yes!" Ming-Ming shouted, her face immediately flushing pink. Her father held up his hand calmly.

"Later, _ma cherie_." He returned his steady gaze to Kai. "I shall return tomorrow; the doctor assured me that you would be staying overnight."

Oh, did she? Kai grumbled, but it was more a token protest than anything else. He still felt like shit.

"Before I leave, then, just one thing. If, as you imply, this is a nasty trick played on you by my son, what would you suggest were his motives for doing so?"

The atmosphere in the room froze. Kai could almost hear Ming-Ming and Toni's minds whirring.

"To make his sister unhappy," he replied without hesitation. Their father inclined his head in an "is that all?" gesture. Kai plunged ahead, pulling his hands into fists under the bedcovers. "He's very good at that, from what I've been told."

_Sorry, Min_, he thought belatedly. The look on her father's face nearly tipped him into a fury again; a small curve of his lips as if to acknowledge Ming-Ming's unhappiness and think nothing of it. He _had_ to say it. He had to. Ming-Ming was going home to spend a night with Toni and god knows what he'd do to her for this but he had to try and make her father understand! "He hits her, did you know that?"

If the atmosphere had frozen before, it dropped to absolute zero now. He didn't dare to look at Ming-Ming; kept his eyes firmly on the man in front of him as he added firmly, "Hard enough to leave bruises."

Their father's eyes were troubled but cold. "I will thank you not to interfere in family matters, Hiwatari."

"Now who's making unfounded claims?" Toni jeered, taking a few steps forwards.

"They're not unfounded,_ branleur_," Kai snarled back.

"_Casse-toi_!" Toni shouted. His face was bright with perceived victory.

"Enough!" They left the room. The father held the door open for Ming-Ming. At last, Kai looked at her properly, and what he saw took his breath away.

Far from looking afraid or even apprehensive, a grim little smile was spreading across her face. Her eyes were hard, and the contours of her face looked more pointed. It was the look she wore when she beybladed – except, he realised suddenly, that was the wrong way around. This_ was_ Ming-Ming; torn free of her_ kawaii_ image, raw and sharp and angry. As she stood, she threw her shoulders back confidently and gave him a furnace of a look. She hefted her phone like a weapon, and told him in a fierce whisper as she stalked towards her father,

"I'll get proof."

* * *

_Mon ange_ - my angel

_Le portable _- mobile/cell phone

_Ma cherie _- my dearie

_Branleur _- wanker

_Casse-toi _- sort of a smush between bugger off and fuck off. Ish.

_Kawaii_ - Japanese for cute

Feel free to correct my French, it's negligible.

xIlbx


	9. Chapter 9

Enjoy!

* * *

The car ride home was stilted and uncomfortable. Ming-Ming deliberately made it more so by flaring up in a tantrum when her father asked for her opinion ("Oh! Now you care! Bit late!"), and spending the rest of the time silently toying with her phone.

She had a plan. It revolved entirely around the fact that Toni, abnormal as he so very was, had no idea of how mobile phones worked beyond using them to call and some vague knowledge of texting. He didn't know what_ else_ they could do.

It wasn't an expensive phone. No internet, no Bluetooth, no touchscreen, not even a camera.

It would do perfectly.

She didn't know why she'd never thought of this before – except, no, she did know. Somehow the abuse had just become a part of life, something to put up with and fight past the effects of, and it had taken Kai and all his burning anger and outrage to remind her that, no, this really wasn't normal, wasn't nice, and needed to _stop_.

She had, in some twisted, disgusting way, been proud of herself at times. Proud of her expert makeup application to cover the many times Toni'd forgotten where to stop, proud of her supple movement that hid the limp and staggers of pain, and the carefully modulated sugary voice that covered the quivers and shakes and sobs.

That wasn't _her_. She wasn't this adorable bubble-headed baby everyone knew. She hadn't been so for years, but still! Beyblading had loosened the chains by which she bound herself, reminded her what it was to do and say things without it passing a careful brain-to-mouth filter first, but still she had done nothing. Just returned to France and carried on as usual, snuggled up in the bonds of what she had always known no matter how distasteful. Hidden behind her disguise because the unknown was scary.

No more. No _fucking_ more.

They reached home, and she fled to her room, ignoring her parents' calls. She needed to practise.

* * *

Toni was furious. Well, in total he was embarrassed, terrified, panicked, frustrated and disbelieving, but that all added up to the same thing. How dare she tell Kai? How dare Kai tell his father? His _father_! The repercussions of this didn't bear imagining.

He wanted to go upstairs and teach the disrespectful little kid a lesson she wouldn't forget in a hurry, but he had seen her dark, brooding look in the car home. That look invariably preceded some form of defiance; last time she had lashed out at him with Venus. He'd needed six stitches in his abdomen, psycho cow.

Calm as you like, he had come home, knocked her out, taken her to a seedy little motel room on the outskirts of nowhere. When she'd woken up, he had systematically, skilfully caused her as much pain as possible without knocking her out again. Just as revenge. And then, to remind her that nobody would ever believe her because he was clever enough to find an excuse for everything, he had taken her straight to hospital, claiming she had been a victim of a vicious mugging attack. All the newspapers seized the story happily and ran with it.

So he had to be careful. She was obviously plotting something, and he couldn't risk another lesson like that one. Not just yet. His father didn't believe Kai's allegation, of course not, but he was wary. It had made him put less faith in Toni's own allegation. Toni cursed himself for not hiding his dislike of his sister more thoroughly over the years.

Just a couple of hours. That was all. A couple of hours of placating his parents by acting entirely normally (unlike Miss Broody-Bitchy, skulking in her room) and then they would hopefully be appeased enough to go out on their usual Wednesday dinner-dance, and_ then_. He wouldn't do too much. Merely give her a taste of what she could expect once Papa had given Kai the expected ultimatum of 'leave the country or I'll have you arrested.'

And _then_.

"_À quoi tu penses_, Antoine?" his father asked, jolting him back into reality. They were sat in the drawing room. His father was reading a newspaper (except he hadn't turned a page since Toni had last looked) and Toni was sitting on the floor, leaning against the arm of the armchair opposite his father. Toni analysed his father's face expression and decided to go for almost the truth.

"Thinking how much I'd like to punch Kai for such a barefaced lie. He's just trying to distract attention from himself!"

His father nodded slowly and returned his eyes to the newsprint. He turned the page at last. Toni breathed a sigh of relief.

* * *

Four hours later, Toni waved his parents goodbye from the doorway. It had worked, the gullible, blind and deaf pair that they were! However, he was very aware that although his mother seemed clueless as ever, his father was regarding him with more suspicion than he felt the situation required. Obviously he wasn't too worried or he wouldn't have left them alone together, but it still had a feel of the 'I'm giving you one chance to prove yourself' rhetoric.

The sensible thing to do would be to do nothing, but he just couldn't. Her flouting of their unspoken rules had just been too blatant, too dangerous. She had to be at least _warned_ of the lesson awaiting her.

So he climbed the stairs loudly and slowly, grinning to himself. Went into her room without knocking. She uncurled herself like a snake and faced him with red-rimmed, spiteful eyes.

"Put that stupid phone down," he snapped. With a huff, eyes never leaving him, she pressed a button and held it down (he knew that was how the phone turned off), then tossed it onto the dressing table beside her bed. It skidded to the edge and for a second he thought it would fall off. That would have been amusing.

"Satisfied?" she hissed. He felt the grin stretch his lips even wider.

"What do you think, sis?" He made a move towards her, and immediately she rocked back onto the bed, legs raised defensively. Definitely wasn't supposed to be funny, but he laughed. "Do you know, that's the exact position a cat will take upon confrontation with a hierarchical superior?"

"Probably because it works," she said defiantly. He carried on laughing.

"Oh, you think? Just a second." He darted forwards. Her flailing feet caught him smartly across the head and chest but he barrelled through, then grabbed her thighs and squeezed until she was forced to lie still. "Animals avoid pain at any cost. Humans understand that sometimes a little pain is necessary to achieve your goals." She regarded him speechlessly with those huge eyes that the whole world loved. "You're not scared enough," he mused. "A little tweak in the right place can only be productive."

Quick as a flash, he grabbed her side, just below her ribs, and _squeezed_. She shrieked and tried to buck him off. He dug his fingers in further momentarily then released her and stood up. She tried to return to her defensive position, but relented with a wince and ended up rolled onto her other side in a comma shape. He looked at her eyes. Saw pain, and that was a good enough substitute for fear for the time being.

"You almost fucked everything up," he said in a very low and soft voice. "So we'll wait a while for the fuss to die down and Papa to stop looking at me askance, and then you'll _pay_."

There we go! Pure fear glittered in those hated eyes, if only for a second. He drove it deeper.

"It'll be like last time, remember that? I won't care about leaving marks, I won't even care about leaving you _functional_." He realised he was beginning to pant and took a deep, slow breath. Didn't work. "I'll beat you until you can't move, I'll break every one of your fingers, I'll make you scream until your vocal cords deform. Can't sing, can't dance, can't hold a beyblade, can barely talk. Ugly and malformed and useless. We'll see how well your career lasts after that, slag!" He subsided, panting heavily. She spat at him. Literally. The spit landed near his foot.

"I won't stay silent!" she shouted. "Not anymore! No matter what you do!"

"Oh, that so?" he snarled. "What about if I ram Venus up ..." He trailed off delicately. It needed no further elaboration. She went white. He seized on the successful theme. "What if I hack off your nipples and mutilate your genitals further, until Kai wouldn't touch you with a barge pole and even if by some miracle he would, it would cause you nothing short of _agony_? What if I did that?"

Her face was an interesting white-green colour. He was feeling a little sick himself; he hadn't meant to say any of that. He hadn't even considered it. It was _her _fault, she hadn't been scared enough! They stared at each other in ringing silence for endless seconds, until he turned on his heel and stormed from the room. Let her ponder on _that_.

* * *

Kai was feeling fine, relative to how he had felt yesterday at any rate, and as a result was bored, restless and anxious by the time that Ming-Ming's father entered the hospital room at half past one in the afternoon.

"I trust you are much recovered?" he asked. Kai was surprised and encouraged. That didn't sound like he was about to be arrested and imprisoned.

"Yeah, all the stupid tests came back clear."

"Good, good." The man wandered aimlessly around the room, hands linked behind his back. Tension stretched Kai's self-control to breaking point. "I'm inclined, upon reflection, to accept that my son's claims are unfounded and based upon the jealousy I know he feels for his sister. Ming-Ming told me that last night he said some very nasty things to her about the two of you." He sighed heavily. "I don't mind the age gap. Nor do I mind the speed which you two appear to have fallen for each other; I did a similar thing with their mother."

I don't care, Kai was thinking frantically, just what else did Toni do to her? It can't have been that bad, he reasoned, or it would have been mentioned.

"However, what I do mind very much about are your accusations of abuse. I see no grounds for these claims and, – "

"Are you _blind_?" Kai couldn't help it. How could someone be this dense? The man's countenance hardened immediately.

"No, Kai, I am not. I would appreciate it if you – "

The door swung open and clattered against the wall. Ming-Ming stood in the doorway. Despite the situation, she took Kai's breath away. She was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and loose green shorts. She held her phone tightly in her hand. Again, she was stripped down to her bare self, dark eyes burning out of a pointed, unmade-up face, all angles and curves and positively fizzing with some barely suppressed emotion.

No bruises, none that he could see, at least, but her eyes were red-rimmed and something was wrong in the way that she stood.

"Kai's telling the truth, Papa," she stated. Her father looked bewildered.

"What? Mimi - "

"He's telling the truth," she said again. "And I have proof." She held the phone out into front of her like a grisly war trophy. Silence. Her father swallowed. His face was very pale.

"Well, then, _mon ange_, I suppose you'd better ..." He gestured vaguely in her direction.

"He didn't know my phone could record sound," she said shakily, and a pressed a button. Toni's voice spooled out into the little room.

When it came, her static-laden scream made both men flinch. Kai jumped to his feet and looked at her urgently. She smiled wonkily and waved her hand in dismissal. Then as Toni's disembodied voice recited how he would beat her break her, and make her scream, he realised that he was pacing backwards and forwards, hands clenched in tight fists. A quick glance over at her father showed that dark anger was starting to replace disbelief in his stricken expression.

""I won't stay silent! Not anymore! No matter what you do!" With a purr from the phone, Ming-Ming ended the recording.

"What did he do?" Kai demanded.

"Nothing," Ming-Ming replied quickly, her eyes fixed on her father, who didn't seem able to look at her.

"You screamed," he ventured at last, his voice a quivering husk compared to earlier. "Why?"

"Oh, that. This." She rolled one side of her top up to rest just under the breasts. The skin was faintly mottled red and purple. "And earlier, here," she rolled up her shorts to reveal bruises on her thighs.

Kai could understand both sides here. He could understand why her father had just gasped, because it was actual physical evidence that confirmed he had been impossibly blind, but he could also understand Ming-Ming's relatively cavalier attitude. It wasn't as bad as the bruise he had seen on her stomach, and nowhere close to the threats Toni had been making in the recording.

Still, "If he didn't do anything after that, then what did he say?"

Ming-Ming gave him a strangely irritated look. "He made some threats. That was all. Didn't so much as touch me."

Was it his imagination, or had her face momentarily paled?

"What did he _say_?" he demanded.

"I won't tell you." She stared him down calmly. He was bemused. '_Won't?_'

"Why not?"

"Because it would do nobody any good." She stuffed her phone back into her pocket. "I'll show the police, and they can do what they want with it."

"The police?" her father repeated uncertainly. She whirled on him, eyes suddenly flashing with that mix of emotions.

"_Oui, Papa, la police_!"

"What did he say, Min?" Kai wasn't giving up that easily. He needed to know!

Ming-Ming walked over to him, and to his surprise and faint amusement, grabbed him by the ears. She had to stand on tiptoe to do so.

"In the future, when all this has blown over and Toni's safely in jail where you can't get to him, then I might tell you," she said. Her hands moved to either side of his jaw. "But I might not. He's not worth it." She turned to her father, who was looking at her with tears in his eyes.

"Mimi, I'm so sorry," he mumbled.

"It's ok, Papa," she said.

It was a lie. Kai didn't need to be as good a people-reader as he was to know that; since he was that good, he knew that it was a lie that the broken man in front of him desperately needed to hear and one that must have been very, very hard for Ming-Ming to tell so sweetly. She hadn't moved to hug her father though, just stood there, straight-backed and radiant.

And then she turned back to Kai, grabbed his face again and stood on tiptoe again. She _shoved_ her lips against his. The kiss wasn't nice in the conventional sense of the word; it was open-mouthed and wet and hot and her teeth scraped against his tongue, and normally he would have needed a healthy dose of blood to the lower regions to find it appealing, but he let it last for as long as she needed it to. When she pulled away, tears were trickling down her cheeks. Her eyes were swelling and her face was beginning to blotch. Snot glistened in her nostrils.

She was fucking beautiful.

"Thank you," she whispered. "I'll call in a bit, ok?" Away she went, trailing her father behind her, this beautiful golden teenage girl who had finally stood up for herself.

* * *

She turned up at his hotel room a week later, unannounced.

"Surprise," she grinned. There was a hint of uncertainty in her voice. Kai opened his arms and she moved into them and hugged him tightly. "Hope you don't mind me dropping in," she said as she let go. "Home is so shit right now."

He raised an inquiring eyebrow. She flicked her hair and sighed.

"Toni's being held in prison pending court – they can't let him out on bail because even though I've got a restraining order, I don't think that'll stop him." She jumped on his bed and bounced for a second before continuing. "Parents don't know what to say to me. Sorry doesn't cover it – and it gets annoying to hear after a while."

He grunted for want of something constructive to say. He noticed with embarrassment that while she was making herself comfortable on his bed, he was still standing by the closed door like an idiot. He shifted away a few steps, feeling suddenly awkward.

She patted the bed next to her, a glint in her eye. He hesitated even so. It seemed utterly wrong still. Her smile disappeared. She put both hands on her hips. "Kai! I don't give a fuck about age, fame, emotional trauma or whatever else is making you stand there like an idiot!"

He grinned sheepishly and she smiled back. "I don't mean sex," she continued frankly (Kai jumped and tried to pretend that he hadn't even begun to consider anything vaguely like that). "I ..." She shook her head briefly, and Kai knew it was connected to Toni.

"I'll kill him, you know," he said as if to himself. "One day." She scowled.

"And what exactly would that solve? Making you feel like you've done something?" She scoffed. He felt himself go red. She laughed as if at a sudden thought and opened her arms. "So come and_ do_ something, anger man."

So he did. He sat down next to her and they had an awkward moment trying to work out torso angles as their mouths met, but then they somehow ended up toppling over backwards_ anyway_, so that was fine. Her hands were pressed to the back of his neck, and he had one hand holding her hair and one running up and down her spine. He put his hand underneath her blue T-shirt. Her skin was soft and hot under his fingers, just as her lips were against his. She gasped and shivered against him, and he stopped, afraid he'd touched a bruise. She bit his lip in response and put both her hands underneath his shirt, up the front of it, and touched his nipple gently. Now _he_ gasped.

He wasn't very experienced with girls, really. He'd done it twice before, to be truthful, and both of those times he'd been drunk and it had been Spencer's idea. Hadn't exactly lasted long.

She giggled as he told her this, and put a feathery kiss on his nose.

"It doesn't matter," she assured him. She was right, of course, especially when she removed her T-short completely. Then experience didn't matter at all, because no matter what he did with the soft, squashy items that she insisted on laughingly calling "mammaries", she made sexy moans and arced her body forwards into his. She put one hand down the back of his boxers and made a comment about there not being enough to grip. She meant his bottom, of course, but the mistake started her laughing, and he smirked, even as he faked outrage and put both hands on _her_ denimed bottom to drag her that precious fragment closer.

But the killer to the mood was, paradoxically, ten minutes later when Ming-Ming pressed her hand flat against the bulge in his trousers while caressing his nipple with the other hand and hungrily slopping kisses onto his face. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he came in his boxers. The_ humiliation_. So he immediately went crimson and apologised gruffly, and as soon as she realised what had happened she howled with laughter until tears spurted from her eyes.

"Not laughing at that," she spluttered at last. "Stop sulking!"

"I'm not sulking," he grumbled.

"Yes, you are." She cuddled up to him. "Stop it."

He sighed. It was hard to resist. Orgasm-euphoria made it difficult to continue anyway. She started to giggle again, and this time he could join in, until he too was nearly crying with laughter about nothing at all.

"Never seen you properly laugh before," Ming-Ming observed, poking his newly-dubbed 'baby chest-hairs'.

"Yeah, well," he muttered, then left it at that. Put his head on hers and held her tight, and if the two of them shed a tear or two during the time they stayed silently like that, just to sum up the past month, then oh well. No one else could see.

* * *

__

À quoi tu penses

- roughly what are you thinking?

_Oui, Papa, la police_! - Yes, Dad, the police!

**THE END**.

All opinions welcome. Thank you to anyone who is reading this,

xIlbx


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